Preview
FREEDOM FIGHTERS FILM FESTIVAL
April 29 to May 1
Science Theatre 143 (U of C)
Anarchism conjures many ideas and images – rioting in the streets, crumbling public institutions, teenage skateboard punks cleaning your windshield at a stoplight without invitation – but it rarely, if ever, suggests a good night out at the cinema.
The Freedom Fighters Film Festival, presented by the anarchist Haymarket Café Workers’ Co-operative, aims to change this. But fear not – it isn’t some covert initiative to reprogram you into a card-carrying, flag-burning tool of the Left, says festival spokesman Mark Bizek. Featuring eight acclaimed films from around the globe, the primary purpose of the three-day event is to entertain you, make you think and leave you to draw your own conclusions.
"We chose these films because they’re entertaining films," says Bizek, near-breathless in his enthusiasm. "(They) don’t just preach, and I think that’s really important. We don’t think we have all the solutions and we don’t think our answer is final or anything like that. I think any time anybody comes up with a ‘final solution,’ that’s a scary thing."
Only one of the festival’s films is expressly about anarchy, the 1981 documentary Anarchism in America. The rest share a common purpose of highlighting individuals, groups, or entire cultures that have striven to question and improve upon existing conditions. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, a surprisingly engaging and often humourous work, traces 25 years in the career of the world-renowned linguist and political activist. This is What Democracy Looks Like is a riveting observation of the 1999 anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, featuring narration from Susan Sarandon and musician Michael Franti.
Most accessible of the lot is Live Nude Girls Unite!, an award-winning documentary about part-time exotic dancer and comedian Julia Query, who attempts to organize the first union of strippers in the United States, much to the chagrin of sex-industry overlords – as well as Query’s feminist-activist mother.
"People identify strippers in any number of ways, and one of the things that they usually don’t identify them as is workers," says Bizek, explaining the film’s relevance to the festival. "We want to promote the idea that no matter what your scenario – no matter what people think of your scenario–you organizing is a good thing. The empowerment that comes out of these women doing this, despite what anybody thinks of their profession, you can’t go away from it without having questioned certain things. They’re articulate, they’re intelligent, they have passions, and they have grievances that are legitimate."
The Freedom Fighters Film Festival is the first major undertaking of the recently formed Haymarket, a self-described "collectivized organization" that has already made its presence felt at a handful of protests and concerts, distributing books, flyers and other media for the curious. The organization plans to open its titular café in May 2005. "Not a meeting place that’s kind of stodgy and full of cranky old Marxists," Bizek explains, laughing. "Hopefully we’ll be participating in the affairs of the local community, as well as providing for the activist community, and have it be vibrant. There’s a wide range of what people want to work on in Calgary, and I think that it can all be tapped into." |
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