Argentina: VideoDanza 09

el vinculo
el blog
otro vinculo
movimiento.org

La Habana: Festival International del Nuevo Cine

Del 3 al 13 diciembre de 2009, La Habana, Cuba

El Festival de La Habana expresa su apoyo a los cineastas de Honduras





festival
diario del festival

Documental: De Bolivar a Chavez

Un documental histórico político sobre los últimos 200 años de lucha en Venezuela y en todo el continente. La resistencia de los pueblos al intervencionismo yanqui y los nuevos desafíos del siglo XXI.


siese - manuel ugarte
un blog

Anti War Posters

Flickr

Code Pink against Afghanistan Escalation!

CodePink Sign Petition
Women Say No to War
Michael Moore - An Open Letter To President Obama On Afghanistan

Shut Down the School of the Americas 2

Protest
DN!

What's happening in Honduras?

Key words: Coup, military, SOA, June 2009, Zelaya, coup president and coup regime, democratic president out

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - On June 28, 2009, graduates of the School of the Americas overthrew the democratically-elected government of Honduras.

In a well-planned operation, 200 masked soldiers under the command of General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez stormed the presidential palace in the middle of the night. The soldiers grabbed President Zelaya from his bed, forced him onto an airplane and flew him into exile. The state television was taken off the air. Electricity to the capital, Tegucigalpa, was cut, as were telephone lines and cell phone service.

Source
RealNews
Zelaya

Shut Down the School of the Americas

SOA (School of the Americas) - an infamous institution training Latin American military to then support the US policies in the region. There is a campaign to shut down the school, as reported on DN!:

....annual protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, frequently dubbed the “School of the Assassins.” Critics say the school’s graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. The group School of Americas Watch says the role of US-trained generals in the recent Honduras military coup underscores the need for the school’s closure.

DN!
SOA Watch
en.wiki

Watch Latin America: TeleSUR

A pan-Latin American terrestrial and satellite television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela. TeleSUR was launched with the objective of providing information to promote the integration of Latin America and as a counterweight to large international medias such as CNN, Univision, BBC, TVE and Deutsche Welle.

teleSUR / en.wiki
venezuelan state tv / en.wiki
canal 7 argentina / en.wiki

RealNews: El Salvador's gold fight goes international

RealNews: After activists block its mining permit, Canadian gold mining corporation is using a US free trade agreement to sue the government of El Salvador
YouTube
RealNews
Mexico
Mentioned in one of the speeches: Eduardo Galeano (Uruguay's writer):
en.wiki
DemocracyNow!

1st Dance Films Festival in Prague!

Organized by: Artn
Program:
- Hommage to Pina Bausch - Pina Bausch / Auf der suche nach tanz – das andere theater der Pina Bausch
- Dancin’ Germany (German dance films)
- DV8 - Enter Achilles
- Ultima Vez - Body, Body On the Wall / Blush
- and other short movies:
Dust (B, 1996, 4 min.), režie: Wim Vandekeybus
Montevideoaki (E, 2004, 5 min.), režie: Octavio Iturbe
Bliss (D, 2004, 3 min.), režie: Jacob Stage
Horizon of Exile (UK 2007, 22 min.), režie: I. Rocamora
Speed Ramp (UK 2002, 5 min.), r. Simon Corder


About artn (Czech):

Občanské sdružení Artn vzniklo s cílem prezentovat a iniciovat nové projekty z oblasti soudobé hudby, klasické hudební prostředky použít v jiném rámci, v jiném spojení, s prací jiných uměleckých oborů. Většina koncertů byla realizována v prostorách přímo nevyhrazeným koncertním či divadelním prezentacím. V minulosti tak byly projekty uvedeny v Tančícím domě v Praze, Plaveckém bazénu ve Slaném, Bazilice sv. Jiří na Pražském hradě apod. Artn je také hlavním organizátorem Festivalu tanečních filmů, jehož první ročník se uskuteční v Kině Světozor od 13. do 15. listopadu 2009. www.art-n.cz

divadlo.cz
kinosvetozor.cz
artn

Claude Lévi-Strauss est mort

Claude Lévi-Strauss, né le 28 novembre 1908 à Bruxelles, mort le 30 octobre 2009 à Paris est un anthropologue et ethnologue français qui a exercé une influence décisive sur les sciences humaines dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle en étant notamment l'une des figures fondatrices de la pensée structuraliste.

wikipedia
rfi
tristes tropiques
ct24 (czech)

Michael Moore: Capitalism: A Love Story

This film is premiered next week at Jihlava Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic.

30-minute interview with Michael Moore
MM
Jihlava doc film fest

Steve McQueen: Hunger (film)

A life in prison under Thatcher's rule and a hunger protest by IRA prisoners. Chilling.
wiki (film)
1981 Irish hunger strike
UDA (a tattoo on a guard's fingers)
20-minute interview with Steve McQueen

ashtanga.cz yoga

I am going to ashtanga class to stretch out again after 1.5 year long break from dancing. Thanks Evicka for this great tip! :-)

Tältprojektet - The Tent Project

A huge musical theater performance on the history of the Swedish working class, which toured the country the summer of 1977 in a huge circus tent. The group included over 100 people, musicians, actors, and members of some of the biggest progg bands of Sweden at the time, most notable Nationalteatern. The Tent Project was a very radical, leftist political movement, but it included different political groups from anarchists to different types of communists and socialists.

Links:
Wiki
Film

Ship to Gaza in Sweden/Goteborg

On 23/9 Ship to Gaza
Mattias Gardell och Monzer El Sabini presenterar Ship To Gaza - ett initiativ från människor i Sverige och Europa för att bryta isoleringen i Gaza. När det är ekonomiskt och praktiskt möjligt tänker de utrusta ett fartyg med förnödenheter och avsegla mot Gaza. Föredrag, samtal och fika. Sång och musik av Ahmed & Fadia Al Khatib. I samarbete med föreningen ”Ship to Gaza”. Kl 18. Fri entré.
Stallet
Blog
Mattias Gardell

UN General Assembly 2009 - Speeches

Speeches of all the participants at the UN General Assembly ("General Debate of the 64th Session 23-26 & 28-30 September 2009") together with a summary are available here:

UN General Debate
Evo Morales
Hugo Chavez

Evo Morales at UN General Assembly

In September 2009 in New York.



youtube

Film about Litvinov 2008

pic

A film about a Nazi demonstration and local people support of it and a Roma protest against it, made by a student of Prague FAMU, called "The Circle - A Portrait of a Demonstration" was screened at Prague Roxy NOD club on Monday 7 Sept 2009.
As Pavel Eichler, a journalist and blogger at idnes.cz, rightly points out in a very good summary of the discussion which followed the screening, Czech Nazis started using very effective techniques how to jump into a discussion and disrupt it and make it seem that they are right and their arguments are justified. No! They are not! Nazis are planning another march later this year (17 Nov 2009 - again, a march - in their words - to support "freedom of speech and non-violence"). Let there be more people to stop them.

Tariq Ali on Oliver Stone's Film

I wonder why there is no sound... A technical glitch?



u tube
more interviews on Venice Film Festival

Venice Film Festival 2009

Pickups:
Michael Moore: Capitalism with Love



Steven Soderbergh: Informant!



Oliver Stone: South of the Border



Claire Denis: Matériel blanc

Lineup:

Opening film: Baaria - Giuseppe Tornatore - Italy

Soul Kitchen, Fatih Akin - Germany
La Doppia Ora, Giuseppe Capotondi - Italy
Yi ngoi (Accident), Cheang Pou-Soi - China/Hong Kong
Persecution, Patrice Chereau - France
Lo Spazio Bianco (White Space), Francesca Comencini - Italy
White Material - Claire Denis - France
Mr. Nobody, Jaco van Dormael - France
A Single Man, Tom Ford - US
Lourdes, Jessica Hausner - Austria
Bad Lieutenant: Port Of New Orleans, Werner Herzog - US
The Road, John Hillcoat - US
Ahasin Wetei (Between Two Worlds), Vimukhti Jayasundara - Sri Lanka
El Mosafer (The Traveller), Ahmed Maher - Eqypt
Levanon (Lebanon), Samuel Maoz - Israel
Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore - US
Zanan-e-bedun-e mardan (Women Without Men), Shirin Neshat - Germany
Il Grande Sogno (The Big Dream), Michele Placido - Italy
36 Vues Du Pic Saint Loup, Jacques Rivette - France
Life During Wartime,Todd Solondz - US
Tetsuo The Bullet Man, Shinya Tsukamoto - Japan
Lei wangzi (Prince of Tears), Yonfan - China/Taiwan/Hong Kong
There will be an additional “surprise film” in competition.

OUT OF COMPETITION

[Rec] 2 - Paco Plaza, Jaume Balaguero - Spain
Chengdu, Wo Ai Ni (Chengdu, I Love You), Fruit Chan, Cui Jian - China
The Hole, Joe Dante - US
The Men Who Stare At Goats, Grant Heslov - US
Ehky ya Schahrazad (Scheherazade, Tell Me A Story), Yousry Nasrallah - Egypt
Yona Yona Penguin, Rintaro - Japan
The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh - US

wiki
venice film festival official pages

What's happening in Northern Yemen? (2009)

5 years of conflict in the North of Yemen.

What's happening in Pakistan? (June 2009)

A good interview on DemocracyNow! with Pakistani opposition politician Imran Khan.

"...[the US/Pakistani actions] are going to fan militancy..."

...And it is true that the people wanted some sort of an operation, but not actually what happened. To go after 5,000 Taliban, they have displaced three-and-a-half million people. To use artillery, helicopter gunships, F-16s on civilian population, they’ve caused this massive human catastrophe. And so, yes, people wanted an operation, but they didn’t want this, because this now, if anything, is going to fan militancy. How are they going to rehabilitate these people? Their crops are destroyed. These are subsistence farmers, most of them. Their fruit orchards, their animals. So what are they going to go back to? This is another problem we face now.

Link:
Interview on DN! (June 24, 2009)

Sudan (documentary on Czech TV)

A very nice documentary on Czech television (in Czech), made in 1999.
The presenter is Petr Pelican (Arabist who is now honorary consul for Sudan in Prague), among others great shooting of Sudanese Cultural Festival in Khartoum (Chartúm).


Links:
Honorary Consul Prague
Interview with Petr Pelican
Documentary Link/ Synopsis
Khartoum / Sudan (en.wiki)

A thousand stars

link to picture

...Stars like dreams that are so easy to touch and imagine at night
And when the day comes they are so hard to remember and realize
Suddenly scared of any kind of small change
Which would open more my mind and move me forward
Scared of uncertainty, failure and of being alone

Sudan... Yemen

Spent the last 3 weeks on a trip to Yemen, a journey which in the first week seemed like watching a film and not fully realizing being there, the last few days seemed already quite familiar (even though I could never get used to such huge differentiation between behavior towards a man and a woman), and when I got back home, civilization seemed irreal.
Similar feelings as when I got back from Tibet (and China in general) about 2 years ago. I remember I did not want to go back to the reality at least in my mind, I wanted to keep my memories of the different people, cultures and landscapes even in my bones for as long as possible. This time it was very similar. I closed my eyes and could see yellow and brown everywhere - sand, ground, dry fields and dusty roads. Sun and warmth on my skin. Rural places with such strong feelings of being in a forgotten land and in a far-away century. People crowding and smiling in bustling markets, full of pulsing life and vitality. So strong emotions from these pictures in my mind. One could think in poor countries people are just sad and there is not much going on, but on the contrary, with the relatively little they have (seen through my eyes), they have busy and rich lives. Could not forget going to bed at 7pm (5pm Czech time!) as there was no light and nothing much to do when camped in Socotra or Haraz mountains, and getting up at 5am with first beams of light or with the singing/shouting of muezzins in the cities. I remember wanting to stay awake the whole night and just stare at the millions of stars I could see in the sky. Having wishes when I saw a star falling down...
My two pieces of experience which I see now as most influential:
- for the first time in Arab world, encounter of the very different behavior towards women, the position of women in Arab world (black veil, black clothes, you can see just their beautiful eyes, minimum of women in the streets, just in markets but never in restaurants, tea houses, or never just hanging around like men... this was supposedly very different e.g. 20 years ago or when Yemen was divided)
- felt like a trip to middle ages or as my friends pointed out, in some cases to neolit.. very rural, people living from simple things, village life surrounded by goats, donkeys, hens, cows, camels, wild dogs demanding food, everyday pasture, crop yelding, sports, kat chewing by men, cow dry excrement collecting etc. Need to say, also a very different political system...
Also one inspiration - in Zabid town in Tihama region, we went to a female workshop where girls were restauring wooden doors or they were wood carving windows, painting etc., this workshop was run by a German development organization called GTZ.de and they have quite many projects in developing countries. I would like to get in touch with them and find out more how to set up something similar, e.g. to help women to develop their skills and get a profession.
I browsed for some Yemen info on the internet and found this blog by an Australian who travelled this region and around. From his page, there is also the picture below, from Sudan, quite stunning (firstly I thought it was from Ethiopia which was just a stone's throw away from Yemen and it was quite tempting... so at least we went for a real Ethiopian coffee serverd by Eritreans in Sana'a..).
Yemen pictures perhaps another time...

fespaco - film festival in burkina faso

21ème édition du Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou (FESPACO) de 28 février au 07 mars 2009, plus d'info sur le site oficiele. Ausssi sur le bbc (2005 seulement).