film industry
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in the media and culture industries around the world, and analysis and reviews of art, culture and the media.
Croatia: students and MASA against Broadway cinema
Report from Croatian anarcho-syndicalist group MASA about a protest against the exploitation of students and workers in the Broadway cinema.
On the evening of Friday, the 24th of July, students – ex-workers of Broadway cinema in Split – organized a protest, because the management of the Broadway cinema didn’t pay them their full salaries for April, May and the June. Ten people have gathered in the front of the cinema’s entrance with the banner “Bojkot kina” (eng. The boycott of the cinema).
Escape from Alcatraz
In the cinema the audience is as disunited and dim as the guests of an opium den. All those parted lips and staring eyes express no convivial enjoyment, they are lulled out of life, journeying along the moonlit paths of dreamland.
Introductory Notes To The Cinema
" It is the audience who makes the art.... What an audience! Whoever wants to look the twentieth century in the face cannot do better than stand behind the screen in a big cinema…
Moore is Less: a critique of Fahrenheit 9/11
Almost all movies so far, along with their creators, are part of the problem and not part of the solution: they produce a message or a story which is just a commodity to be bought - the audience remains passive, happy to be entertained or to consume the ideology. This is a critique of just one movie - "Fahrenheit 9/11".
At a meeting in Cannes a guy got up to heckle Michael Moore, asking him why he paid his workers such lousy wages. Moore had him thrown out.
Korean workers ring in new year with strike for press freedom
Media workers have launched a general strike against a new set of state laws which they claim will enable the government to seize control of the press.
Thousands have been on strike since late December against the South Korean government's package of seven laws, the so-called MB laws, which they claim will restrict press freedom.
Around 4000 workers have joined the stoppage, from 74 newspaper and broadcasting companies, called by the the National Union of Media Workers.
The great class struggle video library project
Christiebooks have announced that they are set to close their class-struggle films section on December 17th unless they find an alternative host - or a £26,000 donation. As a purely hypothetical exercise, could a free alternative be found for their 760 titles?
It has to be one of the best-kept secrets in class struggle anarchism (and we aren't exactly high-profile to start with).
100,000 Bollywood workers on strike
Workers in India's film industry have been the latest to join in the recent strike wave spreading the country.
More than 100,000 Bollywood actors, technicians and cameramen have gone on strike for better pay and working hours, halting dozens of movies and television productions.
Granach, Alexander, 1890-1945
A short biography of Alexander Granach, anarchist and famous actor in German and Hollywood cinema.
Born April 18, 1890, Werbiwici, East Galicia (now Ukraine). Died March 14, 1945, New York, USA.
Guerra, Armand, 1886-1939
Typesetter, film maker, scenario write, actor and anarchist active within the movement in Spain and internationally.
Born 4 January 1886, Liria, Spain. Died 10 March 1939, Saint Mande, France.
Armand Guerra was born Jose Estivalis Cabo at Liria near Valencia on 4th January 1886, the son of a farmer and of a mother who was already looking after a child of 5 years. First as a choirboy and then as a pupil at a seminary in Valencia, he developed an intense hatred for the Church.
David Lynch, Contemporary Cinema and Social Class (2000). Film review – Tom Jennings
Tom Jennings’ essay on David Lynch, recent cinema and film criticism.
Class-ifying Contemporary Cinema by Tom Jennings
US writers call off strike
Writers are heading back to their laptops after voting through a proposed agreement between the Writer’s Guild of America (WAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) for pay and royalties over work done until 2011.
The bicoastal vote followed the announcement last week of the tentative three-year contract, which grants annual pay raises of 3%-3.5% and some gains in residuals for new-media content, including content streamed online - the major rubbing point in negotiations. Guild officials said 3,775 ballots were cast in person or by proxy, with 92.5% of votes cast in favor of ending the work stoppage.
