Occupy the Cinema

Protest and survive: Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s ambitious new film screens with equally powerful work by Russell/Cailleau and Ken Jacobs.

Occupy the Cinema

Austerity Measures

  • Director Ben Russell, Guillaume Cailleau
  • Greece-Germany 2012
  • 9 mins

Athens at crisis point: a colour-separation portrait of the Exarchia neighbourhood during the anti-austerity protests.

Seeking the Monkey King

  • Director Ken Jacobs
  • USA 2011
  • 39 mins

Amid the hypnotic, flickering motion of a metallic terrain, vitriolic onscreen texts rail against American culpability, from the Revolution to Iraq to the present administration. Each statement casts an arrow, and JG Thirlwell’s monstrously cinematic score drives them home.

Deep State

  • Director Karen Mirza, Brad Butler
  • UK 2012
  • 44 mins

‘An audacious, semi-fantastical secret history of the counterforces of popular protest and clandestine control, this struggle is told through archive material, contemporary footage and future speculation.’ A direct development of the filmmakers’ visit to Cairo prior to the Tahrir Square uprising, Deep State was commissioned by Film & Video Umbrella, made in collaboration with author China Miéville.

Total running time c92 mins

Mark Webber