London Socialist Film Co-op

Welcome to the London Socialist Film Co-op

SUNDAY 8 FEBRUARY 2009 SICKO
Michael Moore US 2007 123 mins
Discussion led by Dr Stephen Amiel and Kevin O’Brien

Michael Moore, US 2007, 123 mins, EST, [12A]

America’s most incendiary filmmaker, Michael Moore, returns with this hard-hitting expose of the crisis at the heart of US health-care. SICKO tackles material as controversial as the topics explored in Moore’s other films, yet does so in a way that places the focus on ordinary Americans affected. After detailing just how the system got into such a mess (the short answer: profits and Nixon), he visits Canada, Great Britain and France to see how their health care services differ. Finally, Moore gathers a group of 9/11 heroes – and takes them to a most unexpected place, where they finally receive the care they have been denied and also engage in some unexpected
diplomacy.

Discussion led by Bronwen Handyside, Campaign Manager, Keep our NHS Public, GP Dr Stephen Amiel, Kevin O’Brien, Trades Council Secretary and UNISON delegate,and retired midwife Frances Hook.

Bronwen, Stephen, Kevin and Frances are local campaigners in Hackney, Camden, Sutton and Lewisham, respectively.

SUNDAY 8 MARCH 2009 UK PREMIÈRE OF MADRID BEFORE HANITA
Eran Torbiner Israel/Spain/France/Germany 2006, 58 mins, EST
Eran Torbiner reflects on the segment of the Jewish population that baffled the Zionist community and the Palestinian Communist Party by travelling to Spain to counter the Fascist forces of the Spanish Civil War. Torbiner couples interviews with the handful of surviving olunteers — who reflect on the vicissitudes of their experiences in Spain — with recitations from letters and journal entries of the day and period archival footage.


This screening is dedicated to the memory of Patience Darton


THE GUERNICA CHILDREN
Steve Bowles UK 2007, 62 mins

In the wake of the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, four thousand Basque refugee children were evacuated to Britain: the largest single contingent of refugees ever to arrive in this country. Seventy years on, we hear their extraordinary story and of the conflict between humanitarian need and political convenience that ensued.

Discussion led by Eran Torbiner and Steve Bowles

SUNDAY 5 APRIL 2009 TAKING LIBERTIES
Chris Atkins, UK 2007, 101 mins

Right to Protest, Right to Freedom of Speech. Right to Privacy. Right not to be detained without charge, Innocent Until Proven Guilty. Prohibition from Torture. Taking Liberties reveals how these six central pillars of liberty have been systematically destroyed by New Labour, and the freedoms of the British people stolen from under their noses amidst a climate of fear created by the media and government itself. Irreverent but revelatory, outrageous but true, the film combines these real stories of liberty loss with never-seen before footage, cheeky stunts and comment from Mark Thomas, Tony Benn, leading politicians, celebrities, human rights organisations, academics and lawyers.

THE GREAT GRUNWICK STRIKE 1976-1978: A HISTORY (extract)
Chris Thomas, UK 2007, c20 mins, [tbc]
The Grunwick dispute erupted at a photo processing plant in Willesden, London, in the summer of 1976 and lasted two years. A predominately East African and South Asian female workforce went on strike over appalling working conditions and the issue of trade union recognition. The dispute is remembered as one of the most significant and bitter in the history of the British labour movement. Together with footage of the strike taken at the time, this new film contains interviews with key participants 30 years on, recounting their experiences and what they now think of the strike and its lessons.

Discussion led by Tony Benn

10 MAY 2009 WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN
Steven Okazaki US/Japan 2007 86 min
On August 6th and 9th, 1945, two atomic bombs vaporised 210,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who survived are called ‘hibakusha’ — people exposed to the bomb — and there are an estimated 200,000 living today. Today, with the threat of nuclear weapons of mass destruction frighteningly real and the world’s arsenal capable of repeating the destruction at Hiroshima 400,000 times over, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki looks at the reality of nuclear warfare with first-hand accounts from those who survived and whose lives were forever changed by the atomic bomb.

ON THE VERGE (extract)
SchNews, UK 2008,c35 mins, [tbc]In 2004 a group of Brighton peace campaigners began to bang pots and pans outside their local arms manufacturers EDO MBM in disgust at their part in the Iraq war. This has grown into the Smash EDO campaign, which has cost the company millions, been the subject of large scale police operations and has tested the right to protest in the UK. On The Verge tells the story of one of the most persistent and imaginative campaigns to emerge out of the UK’s anti-war movement and direct action scene.

Discussion led by CND Chair Bruce Kent and SchNews

SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2009 THOSE WHO DANCE
Mayyasa al-Malazi and Camilla Cancantata UK 2006, 49 mins
Those Who Dance tells the story of members of a small community in Rossport, Co. Mayo, Ireland, who have resisted Shell’s attempts to construct a high pressure gas pipeline and refinery across their land, which would have potentially devastating environmental and social consequences. The film compares their situation to that of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta, where Ken Saro-Wiwa and nine others were murdered in 1996 because of their non-violent opposition to Shell’s oil extraction operations and gas flaring. The film offers a powerful critique of corporate practice and philosophy, and challenges viewers to consider the impacts of the oil industry throughout the world, now that the reality of climate change is widely accepted.

THE POWER OF COMMUNITY:HOW CUBA SURVIVED PEAK OIL

Faith Morgan, US 2006, 53 mins, EST, [tbc]

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanised, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens.
Discussion led by Mayyasa al-Malazi, Camilla Cancantata and Cuba Solidarity Campaign
Booking information:

Discussion led by Mayyasa al-Malazi, Camilla Cancantata and Cuba Solidarity Campaign
Wednesday, March 01, 2006