Occupation in Documentary Images: Vers Madrid, A Fight For, In the Red

The text deals with issues of recent uprisings against financialisation and globalisation in the form of confrontational campaigns under the common name Occupy. In the framework of the new shapes of protests, which can be understood as a way of expressing political disobedience, it discusses the question of documenting protests in different world locations. The analysis covers three recent documentary films: Sylvain George’s Vers Madrid – The Burning Bright! (Scenes From the Class Struggle and the Revolution), Siniša Gačić’s A Fight For and In the Red by Ana Pečar and Oliver Ressler.The first one records the activities of the 15M movement or “the Spanish revolution” in the form of the occupation of the Puerta del Sol park in Madrid, the second one the Slovenian movement 15o and the occupation of the platform in front of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange, while the third one documents the actions of Strike Debt and Rolling Jubilee, two New York activist groups whose operation is grounded in the revolt against American debt politics. One of the main characteristics of the films under discussion is the newsreel approach directly or indirectly referred to by the authors. We thus arrive at the conclusion that even nowadays, when the way that confrontational campaigns function has largely changed, the (anti)newsreel is one of the most agile forms of a liberation fight with filmic means.

The integral (Slovenian) version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!