Tag: cinema politica

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The battle for information

Press photo for Jean-Phillippe Tremblay’s documentary Shadows of Liberty

Every day, we are flooded with messages from a variety of media sources. How we process these messages counts in how we make decisions, form opinions and essentially live our lives. When we seek messages in the form of news, we turn to our preferred newscasters/news sources not only for their credibility, but because we trust that the sources we choose will inform us on what we need to know.

However, Jean-Phillippe Tremblay’s documentary Shadows of Liberty, demonstrates that American news outlets have been abusing this trust by intentionally customizing or omitting information to suit network self-interests.

Shadows of Liberty presents a series of examples of major news networks that have used news coverage as a way to serve corporate interests, be politically influential and obtain higher ratings.

The first question this documentary answers is how far a conglomerate news network will go to protect corporate interests. The first case analysis deals with CBS news reporter, Roberta Baskin, whose exposé on Nike’s factories in the ‘90s unveiled the inhumane working conditions of overseas factories. Her report made national headlines and gained traction among America’s youth, who protested and boycotted Nike products. When Baskin tried to follow up on the story after the surge in public interest, CBS’s executive producer shut the story down.

When Shadows of Liberty interviews Baskin for her side of the story, she reveals some unsettling facts: CBS and Nike had a contract for the Olympic winter games that same year which required all field news reporters to sport a Nike parka while on the air. Baskin’s news story evidently became a problem of commercial interest which, in this case, seems to have taken precedence over a news story that mattered to the public.

In another case analysis, NBC’s To Catch a Predator is scrutinized on how they create news stories for the sake of ratings. For those unfamiliar with the show, it executes sting operations on grown men soliciting underage boys and girls in chat rooms and forums. Posing as young boys and girls, To Catch a Predator baits the men to a meeting spot where camera crews and police await. The problem with this show is that it turns a noble intent into a glamorized hour of controversial reality T.V. posing as news.

In the example given in the documentary, To Catch a Predator goes to the home of a District Attorney after attempts at luring him to a sting site have failed. With camera crews in tow and the police surrounding his home, the District Attorney sees no escape and ends his life. This type of operation is seen as having been a blatant plea for ratings. A case where cameras should have been turned off to protect the integrity of the police case and the District Attorney’s family.

Shadows of Liberty is a well-structured and timely documentary. It brings into question the things we see and hear in mass media and makes us wonder about the things we do not. For those who love documentaries that reveal truths that otherwise never see the light of day, Shadows of Liberty is worth checking out.

Shadows of Liberty will be shown at 7 p.m. Nov. 5 at 1455 de Maisonneuve W. Room H-110. Admission is by donation. For more information, visit cinemapolitica.org/concordia

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Commercialized education the Croatia edition

A scene from Igor Bezinovic's documentary Blokada. Photo courtesy of Cinema Politica.
A scene from Igor Bezinovic’s documentary Blokada. Photo courtesy of Cinema Politica.

Montreal knows a thing or two about student movements. Red squares, large demonstrations, the echoes of pot and pans; it is a scene that we in Montreal have become accustomed to in the past year or so.

On Monday Oct. 22, Cinema Politica is premiering Blokada, a film that will resonate with those who opposed, witnessed or took part in the student movement in Quebec.

Directed by Igor Bezinovic, this documentary is about the 2009 student movement in Croatia, where students banded together to demand free education.

The film is structured in a way that shows the viewer the chronological set of events from the movement’s creation to its eventual disintegration. From the very start, the student’s message is very clear: they want free education, and they want the suspected mismanaged government funds to pay for it.

With claims that their government excessively spends 41 million euros to fund military projects, the students believe those funds should be reallocated to the education sector which requires approximately 40 million euros a year.

At first, university administrators supported the student movement by suspending classes in order to maintain a united front. But as time passed, the dean and council members decided to resume classes in order for the school semester to be saved.

The outraged students did not back down in defeat over the loss of support. Instead, they fought harder and chanted louder in their requests. Their tactics included mass demonstrations with plenty of signage, interrupting classes, long marches, debates and spontaneous festivals. Though much of it sounds radical, the tactics shown in the documentary were actually quite inspiring. Why? Because the group was organized as a collective and decisions were made as a collective.

In their united front, the students of Croatia stated that they are not after a contract of intangible conditions, but a law which gives every student the right to education as long as an entrance exam is passed. They want to abolish fees so that people can study according to their ability and not their social standing. And without giving away the details surrounding the movement’s end, I leave you with a quote from one protester getting ready to rally students in a march: “our protest is over, but our struggle isn’t.”

Blokada is a documentary worth watching because it deals with a lot of the same issues which our own student movement has dealt with and is dealing with right now. Seeing it being done halfway across the globe is significant for all who are for or against the debate of free education.

Blokada premieres on Oct. 29 at 1455 de Maisonneuve W. Room H-110. 7 p.m. Admission is by donation. For more information, visit cinemapolitica.org/concordia

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Many paper memories: feminism, art, and the 1970s

Image courtesy of Cinema Politica.
Image courtesy of Cinema Politica.

Dearest art aficionados, for those of you who, much like myself, associate the autumn season with new literary ventures, art cravings, coffee shops and intellectual teasing of all sorts, make sure to book your evening off Oct. 22 for Cinema Politica’s upcoming screening of The Heretics.

The film, which was written, directed and produced by Joan Braderman in 2009, explores the complications of feminism, art and media in the 1970s, through interviews with members of the feminist art magazine, The Heresies.

Artists who were once a part of the editorial crew contribute their views, memories, and nostalgia, recalling poignantly some of the more controversial moments of the magazine that ran for 27 issues, from 1977 to 1992.

Most of these women are what would be considered “second-wave feminists,” although many of them are quick to state that they no longer like to be associated with the feminist movement, because it has taken on a subversive meaning. “It used to be that being a feminist meant that you were a fighter. Today, it means you’re a victim,” states one of the interviewed artists, with more than a hint of dismay.

The documentary makes it its mission to point out the uniqueness of The Heresies. As Braderman explains it, in an era where the art world was ruled by panels of men, this magazine, which was owned by no one in particular, funded without any form of advertisement and relied solely on its subscribers, was a peculiar phenomenon. Contributors vividly recall the many meetings a week they attended; drinking, smoking and arguing into the early hours of the morning, debating the controversy that they had managed to stir up amongst their readers.

It’s true that the film is fairly one sided, though this does not make it exaggerated, a fault that is often attributed to documentaries of the sort. The ‘collage’ style of Braderman’s documentary was lackluster at times, but her interviewees entirely made up for it. Instead of blatant condescension and old-days nostalgia, the film presents a fabulous crowd of alert revolutionaries who decided that if no one was going to change the world for them, they would simply have to do it for themselves.

Expect a documentary that does a marvelous job at telling the story of friendship, companionship and controversy, reminding our generation of what it truly means to blur the lines between who we are and the art we live for.

The Heretics screens at 7 p.m., Oct 22 at 1455 de Maisonneuve West, Room H-110.

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So you want to work in Canada?

The End of Immigration, directed by Marie Bolti and Malcolm Guy.
The End of Immigration, directed by Marie Bolti and Malcolm Guy.

We live in Canada; a country that knows few bounds when it comes to multiculturalism, diversity, free speech, democracy, opportunity and riches.

We are by no means a perfect country, especially when we look back at the roots of our colonization, but we are a persistent bunch, a proud bunch, and through immersion and assimilation we have tended a culture that is uniquely Canadian.

The End of Immigration is a film that demonstrates one of the few things not to be proud of as a Canadian.

Directed by Marie Bolti and Malcolm Guy, this film is about the unspoken truths of migrant workers who come to Canada on temporary contracts. It’s a documentary which uncovers the privatization of migration, whereby foreign workers are treated as commodities and sent to Canada to work for specific companies.

A Canadian law passed in 2011 stipulates that all foreign temporary workers must leave Canada after four years, effectively shutting out any opportunity for a temporary foreign worker who wishes to stay, and essentially institutionalizes an unsystematic approach to filling a drained labor force. And that’s essentially the problem. Instead of dealing with the labour shortage, the government has pushed the problem onto the private sector by allowing private companies to bring foreign workers to Canada.

As stated by an interviewee in the film, the foreign workers are not the stereotypical agricultural laborers or domestic workers that come to mind when thinking of foreign workers, but workers we interact with on a daily basis at fast food restaurants, gas stations, and even line workers on the CBC towers of Montreal. According to Dominic Parent of Quebec’s Paranet Cleaners, having foreign workers coming in to do jobs that Canadians do not want is a “solution.”

A production manager of Olymel in Alberta agrees; he needs foreign workers to work in the slaughterhouses with wages and working conditions which Canadians tend to pass up for better paying jobs in the oil fields.

The harsh reality of this film is that we bring foreign workers to Canada under private company contracts which they are bound to. They cannot find better jobs upon arrival, they cannot demand higher wages or a change in working conditions. They are bound to a corporate piece of paper which takes away the freedoms which we as Canadians are accustomed to. Breaching the contract gets them a plane ticket home.

The core of this issue is that Canada is not holding itself accountable for its shortage in labour and instead passes the issue onto the private sector, which does not have the required resources or management skills needed to ensure that foreign workers are being treated fairly and ethically. So where is the line drawn? While Canada is providing the opportunity for foreigners wishing to work, it is also taking advantage of these workers who are desperate to provide for their families and improve the quality of their lives.

The End of Immigration will be featured on Oct. 15, 1455 de Maisonneuve W. Room H-110 at 7 p.m. Admission is by donation. For more information, visit cinemapolitica.org/concordia

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Through the eyes of the people

Photo courtesy of Cinema Politica.
Photo courtesy of Cinema Politica.

Cinema Politica’s Oct. 4 screening, The Suffering Grasses, is an educative and insightful film that reveals the social and political circumstances that Syrian civilians face on a day-to-day basis. This is not the best film to watch to become informed on the source of Syrian conflicts (which can date back decades), but it is an important film to watch in order understand the effects of this ongoing strife.

This documentary takes us to the beginning of the civil unrest which began in 2011, when Syrians took to the streets to protest President al-Assad’s policies and undemocratic governance. In reaction to these protests, President al-Assad sent the Syrian Army to control and disperse the protesters. The problem however, was that the Syrian Army used intimidation and gunfire to disperse crowds, which led to many civilian deaths.

A lawyer interviewed in the film explained that for every innocent killed, a new martyr was born in reaction, ready to die for redemption and freedom. As a result, rebellion groups such as the Farooq Battalion and the Free Syrian Army formed with the purpose of serving and protecting the protesters.

Over the course of 2012, with each day bringing new conflict and further political unrest, many Syrians have had no choice but to flee the country altogether, seeking refuge in Turkey or other neighboring countries. In situations where leaving was not a option, Syrians have sold their homes and valuables in exchange for weapons. One woman stated that owning a weapon was even more important than gold, even though ownership of a weapon was enough justification for the Syrian Army to put the owner to death.

The common thread that seems to link all those interviewed for this documentary, is their disdain for their government and their desire for freedom. And while a documentary will help spread their message to the rest of the world, people are still wary of the media.

The Suffering Grasses is brought to us by Cinema Politica in collaboration with the Syrian Student Society. Panel discussions are slated to follow the film. Premieres Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. at 1455 de Maisonneuve W. Room H-110. Admission is by donation. For more information, visit cinemapolitica.com/concordia.

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Movement, memory and mobilization

The Light Bulb Conspiracy – dir. Cosima Dannoritzer, 2010, 75m

The campus-and-community-run organization Cinema Politica has officially released its fall lineup for the 2012 fall semester. Touching upon themes of movement, memory and mobilization, The Concordian has your guide to this year’s most controversial documentaries. The best part? Admission is by donation, so pay what you can and not a cent more.

FALL LINEUP 2012

Monday, Oct. 1
The Furious Forces of Rhyme – dir. Joshua Atesh Litle, 2010 , 84m
A fascinating story about Hip Hop as a language that unites those from one side of the world to the other.

Thursday, Oct. 4
The Suffering Grasses – dir. Iara Lee, 2012, 52m
An inside look into the political and civil conflicts in Syria as told by those who are living it.

Monday, Oct. 15
The End of Immigration – dir. Marie Boti and Malcolm Guy, 2012, 52m
A look into Canada’s regressive immigration policies and how it exploits certain minorities across Canada. And the focus is not in 1880. The focus is now.

Monday, Oct. 22
The Heretics – dir. Joan Braderman, 2012, 95m
The feminist art collective that produced the journal “Heresies,” reunites after two decades to reflect on how and why they came together to support the voice of women.

Monday, Oct. 29
Blokada – dir. Igor Bezinovic, 2012, 93m
Croatia’s longest and most controversial student movement takes the spotlight in this behind-the-scenes documentary.

Monday, Nov. 5
Shadows of Liberty – dir. Jean-Phillipe Tremblay, 2012, 93m
A look at American mainstream media and how it exercises a social, economic and political power.

Thursday, Nov. 8
The Carbon Rush – dir. Amy Miller, 2012, 84m
A revealing look at how the multi-billion dollar carbon industry can offset their emissions to other locations at the expense of others.

Monday, Nov. 12
5 Broken Cameras – dir. Guy Davidi and Emad Burnat, 2011, 90m
Five years and five broken cameras later, Davidi puts together an inspiring film that showcases the lives of one Palestinian family.

Friday, Nov. 16
Herman’s House – dir. Angad Bhalla, 2012, 81m
A female art student takes on a project that explores how one prison inmate’s vision of a dream home changes after 25 years in solitary confinement.

Thursday, Nov. 22
United in Anger: A History of ACT UP – dir. Jim Hubbard, 2012, 90m
A grassroots history of ACT UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) and how it brought together a community that saved each other’s lives.

Saturday, Nov. 24
Jai Bhim Comrade – dir. Anand Patwardhan, 2012, 182m
A startling look at the oppressions imposed on people of Mumbai and how their voices, music and art challenged their oppressors.

Monday, Nov. 26 — Double Feature
E-Wasteland – dir. David Fedele, 2012, 20m & The Light Bulb Conspiracy – dir. Cosima Dannoritzer, 2010, 75m
In these two documentaries, expect to confront questions such as, “where do electronics go to die?,” and “how do you deal with a product that refuses to wear out?”

Monday, Dec. 3
We Are Wisconsin! – dir. Amie Williams, 2012, 105m
Following the Wisconsin Governor’s budget-repair bill, people from all walks of life gathered together for a historic 18 day protest against political upheaval.

All shows are at 7 p.m. at 1455 de Maisonneuve West in Room H-110. For more information about Cinema Politica and to find out how you can get involved, visit cinemapolitica.org

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Freedom to squat

Cinema Politica is a non-profit community and campus organization that screens independent films dealing with environmental and cultural issues, politics, and social justice at campuses across Canada and abroad. Each Monday, beginning Sept. 17, Cinema Politica will be featuring an independent film that is open to Concordia students and the public.

Cinema Politica’s first feature film of the semester, Squat: The City Belongs to Us, is about a Barcelona-based activist group, Miles de Viviendas (Thousands of Homes), who occupy evicted and boarded up buildings and then turn them into inspired homes.

A “squat” is a group of occupiers that defy their town councils wishes and occupy these boarded up buildings based on their belief that they’re essentially being played. The occupiers don’t just occupy buildings because they need a place to live (though many of them do); they occupy these buildings to show their intolerance to being tossed around by “the same dog with different collars,” as one interviewee said. Once the squatters are in, they clean, make repairs, and gather together in a collective effort to ensure that electricity is restored, and that food and shelter are provided to its occupants.

The film presents us with a situation where the low-income dwellers of Barcelona are being pushed further away from the city by their own town councils. Many of the complexes’ landlords will sell their complexes to the private sector, who then renovate the building only to resell it at a higher rate (which is unattainable for past tenants).

The problem is that the town council needs to approve of the landlords provisions to evict, and does so on what seems like a self-interest basis. Another issue is that many of the evicted homes that are boarded up stay boarded up for long periods of time, thus perfectly good homes sit unused. One of the complexes shown in the film is even owned directly by a member of town council, who, once investigated, was found to be evicting his tenants as a landlord but also approving the provisions of eviction as a member of town council, thus displaying the extent of corruption.

The film implies that the government’s actions in regards to a resolution of this problem, have been less than inspiring for the squatters. In the 1980s some squatting communes were legalized, although their street protests are not, leaving many squatters feeling like they’ve been tolerated and gagged.

This film demonstrated how the bringing together of friends, family, neighbors, and strangers, can be loud enough to be heard. My only criticism with this film is that it didn’t show enough of the movement’s effort to hear their town councils’ invitation to dialogue.

Squat: The City Belongs to Us will be shown on Monday, September 17, at 7 p.m. in room H-110, 1455 de Maisionneuve West. Admission is always free although donations are appreciated.

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The view from up close

Documentaries are generally about reducing distances between the viewer and subject(s).
A well-made doc will be able to place a complete neophyte in the world of the film, and make them understand it.
Biographical documentaries—whether they be about one or many—operate in a similar way, but differ in that they don’t require an explanation of setting; the world is understood, but the subject is not. These films are inherently mirror-like: the narrowed distance between the viewer and subject motivates reflection in the viewer. The tricky part, however, is to make the subject easy to relate to without simplifying or objectifying them. This is doubly difficult when dealing with more marginal groups.
How Does It Feel, a National Film Board-backed documentary written and directed by Lawrence Jackman, opens bluntly. Kazumi Tsuruoka, who suffers from cerebral palsy, explains his feelings to the camera. The opening is the sole scene without subtitles, and CP makes his words all but indecipherable. With subtitles—or, I suspect, with listening practice—Tsuruoka is pointed and eloquent, something the film makes clear in its second scene.
This opening is an excellent bit of instructive contrast: any assumptions an audience may have about the lucidity of this man are teased out by the opening, before the film makes it clear that Tsuruoka’s limitations are purely physical. Tsuruoka isn’t well-spoken despite his condition; his physicality has little bearing on the quality of his thought.
Tsuruoka isn’t a documentary subject simply because of his condition. It’s his one-man show that makes him particularly noteworthy. In it, he sings a variety of jazz and blues standards, as well as some ballads, many of which are elevated to an entirely different level of meaningfulness by the realities of his life. Thus, “outside, I’m masquerading / Inside, my hope is fading / Just a clown / Oh yeah since you put me down / My smile is my make-up I wear,” is no longer just a breakup song, it’s a way to exercise a much deeper pain.
This type of art therapy is quickly gaining a strong reputation for the results it can yield, not just as an emotional output but as a confidence-building and prejudice-breaking experience.
It’s the kind of thing Concordia’s Centre for the Arts in Human Development offers, as documented in Ryan Mullins’ and Omar Majeed’s The Frog Princes.
In this self-narrated piece, we’re introduced to a production of The Frog and the Princess: A Musical Ecodrama acted out by adults with developmental delays, some physical, some mental. The play becomes an incredibly stressful experience for some of the players. While others find it easier, all seem to get a serious boost in confidence from the intimidating task of memorizing lines and being on stage.
At the same time, some of the actors have to face their pains and fears head-on. Rayman, who plays the Frog Prince, must endure a scene where the entire court of humans laughs mercilessly at him for being a frog. In the first run-through, what starts as fiction quickly begins to invoke a deeper, more visceral emotion in Rayman. His exit from stage seems too abrupt to be simply acting, but the emotion nevertheless stays largely on stage; it takes almost no time before Rayman’s posture returns to its nonchalant norm.
Both of these documentaries avoid any pitfalls with depiction of their subjects, and as a result, the characters we meet are neither over-sympathized nor over-simplified. There’s eloquence and limitation, poignancy and simplicity. In other words, there’s not much difference in these characters than in the ones that populate any other documentary; distance, here, is not a factor.

Catch a viewing of How Does It Feel and The Frog Princes on March 26 at 7 p.m. in H-110. For more information, visit www.cinemapolitica.org.

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What makes the man a woman?

Concordia has, over the past couple of years, been slowly adapting their policies to the needs of the transgender community. While the university has misunderstood the problems transgender students face at Concordia and has occasionally appeared insensitive, effort is, by and large, present. Confusion about pronouns and salutations is common for those without a trans friend or colleague. Even the most cautious of inquirers can be apprehensive about asking questions, lest they be inane or offensive. While the basics aren’t difficult to explain, it’s often a mystery to those without the fortune of knowing a trans person. If you’re curious, the two films at Cinema Politica next week will answer your questions.
You could call Monday’s offering a diptych: the two films—Switch: A Community in Transition and Orchids: My Intersex Adventure—both present tensions between sex and gender. The autobiographical documentaries deal with the same broad issue, but the source of tension comes from fundamentally different places. In Switch, Brooks Nelson—the film’s director, who also serves as its protagonist—is undergoing a transition from female to male. The film’s opening scene is perhaps its most poignant. Brooks’ girlfriend asks her four-year-old nephew whether Brooks is a man or a woman, and the child’s response illuminates the contrived nature of gender better than any textbook could: Brooks is a man “because he has short hair and wears boy clothes.” Obviously there’s more to gender than this, but when a child is ignorant of socially constructed gender, he or she assumes it is based on choice. Switch looks at the community in which Nelson lives, and how its members handle Brooks’ transition. It’s a hopeful film, as we see a wide spectrum of people understand, at different rates, the importance of a person being comfortable with their identity. Perhaps most encouraging is the church congregation that seems almost uninterested in the transition; as far as they are concerned, the clothes Nelson wears or the shape of his body have nothing to do with his character. While this may miss the deeper lessons of how society treats genders and the LGBTQ community, it shows the willingness of regular people to ignore appearances. If nothing else, it’s a strong foundation to teach on. But those closest to Nelson have their own issues they need to work through about his transition, and these may not be so obvious. For a friend who takes great comfort in having a fellow butch lesbian to identify with, Brooks’ transition feels somewhat like a betrayal. For Nelson’s mother-in-law, the doubling back of her daughter from having a girlfriend to having a boyfriend is confusing. But neither takes long to clarify that their issues are short-term and paltry.
Orchids presents a similar issue, but somewhat more complicated. Phoebe Hart, the subject and filmmaker, tells us about the rare condition she has called androgen insensitivity syndrome, which makes her intersex; she has both male and female reproductive tissue. She developed testes in the womb—and was born with them—but her body was resistant to androgen and so it never developed into the male form. She has no uterus, but otherwise is physically a woman.
Hart’s issues focus largely on how her parents have treated the issue, which was to hide it and encourage their daughters—Hart’s younger sister also has the condition—to do the same. They don’t seem embarrassed by their daughters, but they do seem sheepish about their condition. This is understandably painful for the younger Harts, and they set off on a road trip to reconcile their doubts and reaffirm their identities.
When it is boiled down, the subjects in both films face the same marginalization: name-calling and insensitive confusion about their sexual orientation. While Hart doesn’t get the sideways looks Brooks does, the reaction to her condition, when explained, tends to be stronger.
In the end, both subjects come to the same conclusion: their identity pushes people to a choice, and those who abandon ship weren’t worth it in the first place. In a lot of ways, “transitioning” describes their friends and families as well as it describes them, or perhaps more so: Brooks and Phoebe know who they are, despite what their bodies look like and now its up to those around them to prove who they are in their actions and reactions to their transgender peers.

Switch: A Community in Transition and Orchids: My Intersex Adventure are showing on March 12 at 7 p.m. in H-110. For more information, check out www.cinemapolitica.org/concordia.

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So what’s up, docs?

A scene from Håvard Bustnes’ Health Factory.
A scene from Håvard Bustnes’ Health Factory.

The 1980s may be remembered for Madonna, Tom Petty and Phil Collins—or are those the the Superbowl halftime shows of the past decade?—but it was also a turning point for the perception of government in both the United States and Britain. As the great (sarcasm) Ronald Reagan said, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
This ushered in a new paradigm of absolute and obsequious commitment to the market. America was built on competition, it was said, and its improvement was dependent on unfettered capitalism.
The market is a brilliant tool and an important facet of good democracies. But the overzealous commitment to wholesale privatization is deeply flawed. Competition amongst retailers and car makers forces innovation because these industries are based on consumer desires, and providing excellent products is a powerful incentive. These tenets are absent in other fields, the most obvious of which is health care, an industry based on need and trust.
The idea that government-run health care is a bloated bureaucratic mess comes from this era (which also brought us shoulder pads, big hair and Sixteen Candles), and it was the decade in which Britain and Norway partially privatized their health care systems, exemplified by Margaret Thatcher’s famous “hospital of my own choosing” speech.
Håvard Bustnes’ Health Factory documents the effects of this pseudo-privatization,where government funds create a faux market. In Norway, the state pays hospitals by the procedure; birthing a baby, for example, nets a Norwegian hospital 18,000 kroner. But should a slow-paced birth require a vacuum, the hospital pockets an additional 10,000 kroner. Needless to say, the threshold between “normal” and “requiring expedition” starts to wane fairly fast.
According to nurses in Norway, hospitals go as far as to chastise employees for an abundance of “normal births” in a given month.
A prominent Norwegian doctor sums up this state of affairs deftly: paying by the procedure incentivizes quantifiable items, shifting focus away from improving health. A hospital would rather treat 10 easy patients as opposed to five difficult ones, since the former has a better ratio of time to value. It also discourages the human side of health care. What value is there in holding someone’s hand who is in deep crisis, he asks, and how long do you hold on before it becomes unprofitable?
The obvious ethical issue of ranking patients by profitability aside, a hospital market isn’t feasible because healthy markets require informed consumers. Consumers chose VHS over Betamax because they could easily deduce the former’s cost-benefit superiority. This choice eventually drove Betamax out of existence (to the dismay of many picture-quality purists). But making this kind of decision about your health care provider requires knowledge of a much more esoteric nature. And, as is argued in the film, consumers don’t necessarily want choice when it comes to which hospital to go to; they just want good care. Competition, it seems, is not the golden goose the Iron Lady made it out to be.
Obviously, public health care has its own major flaws; Canadians know this well. The Big Wait addresses one of these: the inability of international medical graduates to practice medicine in Canada. IMGs, be they from Kenya or Serbia or India, arrive in Canada hoping to benefit from the country’s need for doctors. Owing to their degree and, for most, their experience, they can skip medical school but must pass the same licensing exams as new Canadian graduates. Then they must go through our residency program before becoming certified doctors, but this step represents a major bottleneck. All Canadian medical school graduates are guaranteed a residency; IMGs must fight for a handful of these positions. If they don’t snag one, they must wait an entire year before reapplying. Many languish in stopgap jobs for years before finally setting foot inside a Canadian hospital.
This logjam is driving many of these would-be doctors southwards, because the American private system is better equipped to offer a wealth of residency positions. For communities like Midland, Ont., where family doctors are rare and the walk-in clinic recently closed, the idea that trained doctors are being turned away is justly frustrating. Wait times are a national problem and more doctors are needed. Turning away potential fast-track doctors seems ludicrous.
The question, however, is whose warts are worse? Is inefficiency a worthy price to pay for a system incapable of prioritizing anything but need? Or is expediency something to covet above the risk of monetizing patients, which in itself may not be endemic to privatization?After these two films, you can at least say you’re informed enough to make an intelligent decision and, hopefully, have a healthy discussion. Just don’t pay by the word.

Health Factory and The Big Wait are showing on Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. in H-110. Visit www.cinemapolitica.org for more details.

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Sweet dreams are made of this

A scene from Black Diamond: Fool's Gold. Cinema Politica is screening the film Monday, Feb. 13.
A scene from Black Diamond: Fool's Gold. Cinema Politica is screening the film Monday, Feb. 13.

While the “rags to riches through hard work” narrative may anchor capitalist ethos, it lacks the glamour we tend to think should accompany success these days. Slow aggregation just isn’t sexy. No one strives to be Cornelius Vanderbilt anymore; Jonathan Duhamel or Mark Zuckerberg feature in today’s schemes and dreams. And, though it may be the American Dream’s most exclusive kin, the story of the elite athlete, say Michael Jordan, is perhaps coveted most.
This shift from Vanderbilt to Jordan also alters the character of the almost-made-its. Those who worked hard to build a business, but never neared the staggering success of the Commodore, still built something; they won’t be remembered as titans of business, but they’re not often cautionary tales. The same cannot be said about elite athletes.
For every LeBron James, there’s a handful of Hook Mitchells: athletes who came close to the big time but are derailed through bad decisions, bad management or simple bad luck. Now imagine the kids striving to become the poster on their wall who face higher stakes, consequences even more dire and have no semblance of a legal safety net to protect them. This gets you somewhat close to the situation documented in Black Diamond: Fool’s Gold.
Black Diamond focuses on young boys in Ivory Coast and Ghana who share dreams of playing professional soccer, not just for the glamour but, as one of the 13-year-olds says in earnest, to repay their mothers for all they did to feed their growing kids.
It’s immediately clear most of these kids will never play professionally, not in Uruguay or Japan and certainly not in Europe; there’s far more of them than there are spots in the pros. So there’s a feeling of dread pervading their conversations with the filmmakers about playing for
Barcelona or Juventus or Marseilles. And it’s not long before we realize the kids aren’t just fighting against statistics. We’re introduced to a program called ASPIRE Africa through a talent call on Ghanaian television. We later see their van parked at Accra’s main square, blaring “your dreams will come true, your dreams will come true” over the roof-mounted loudspeaker. Called the largest football
talent search in history, the Qatari-backed program annually screens 500,000 13-year-olds from seven countries, hoping to find Europe’s next imported stars. We join the 50 finalists in Ivory Coast and in Ghana, where they are playing for scouts from football royalty.
ASPIRE looks benevolent on the surface, providing a stage and spectators with legitimate clout. But a little digging unearths a sinister network manipulating the boys and conning their families.
Agents and managers who attend the showcase offer positions in Austria or Morocco, if the kids can pay up front fees of three or four thousand dollars. When parents balk, they are asked why they would damage their kid’s chances for overhead costs sure to be recouped 10 times over. Your child will be happy and your finances secure, they say, but only if you pay now. Not many parents are able to resist this dual-pronged entreaty.
The players arrive, bright-eyed and ready to make their mark, only to be abandoned penniless in a foreign country. It turns out ASPIRE is more of an early screener for other semi-pro teams; the 13-year-olds are too young to train, but scouts want to know who to keep their eyes on. For the rest of the kids, the camp is a spider web in which self-interested businessmen and experienced con men ensnare their marks. The players’ elders warned of these spiders, but the siren song of Adidas kits and Umbro shoes is too hard to resist. (A visual aside: the spider motif slowly makes its way through Black Diamond visually, culminating in one of the most unsettling, illusion-breaking moments I’ve seen in a documentary. I won’t ruin the surprise, but it’s a rare instance where the verisimilitude of documentary is subverted to its advantage.)
The film is explicit in comparing this modern-day industry with the slave trade. It may be an extreme analogy, but it’s hard not to compare the gated training schools where kids are used and disposed of like commodities to the coastal fortresses built by the British.
Every NFL or NBA player leaves dozens of high school peers behind, working minimum wage jobs, wishing they hadn’t listened to the sycophants and opportunists who promised glory but disappeared when expectations weren’t met. It’s an upsetting story, but it pales in comparison to the one Black Diamond tells. Because for every Didier Drogba or Michael Essien, there are hundreds of Ivorians and Ghanaians who were tricked by soccer’s swindlers, and who started with nothing but somehow now have less.

Black Diamond: Fool’s Gold is showing on Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. in H-110. For more information, visit www.cinemapolitica.org/concordia.

Categories
Arts

How the Cold War was almost reignited

Jan Neoral (third from the left) poses with citizens of Trakavec who are against the radar.

Jan Neoral (third from the left) poses with citizens of Trakavec who are against the radar.

Back in 2007, the Bush administration was trying to install a anti-missile radar system at a military base in the Czech Republic. While this issue didn’t really register in North America, according to filmmaker Filip Remunda, it was a big deal in Europe.

“This issue provoked the largest social and political discussion in Czech Republic since the Soviet revolution,” he said. Many feared that installing an anti-missile system in the Czech Republic could be seen as an arms buildup instead of a defensive move, and would kickstart a new Cold War between Russia and the USA.

Remunda is one of the directors of Czech Peace, which looks into the response of Czech citizens to America’s plans. The film is a followup to 2004’s Czech Dream, when Remunda and co-director Vít Klusák tricked the country into believing they were opening a new hypermarket.

Despite claiming not to be political filmmakers, Remunda and Klusák decided to make a documentary about the issue of military space as well as the rift caused by the potential radar.

“In Czech Republic, it is a very sensitive topic,” explained Remunda. “[Historically Czech Republic] always used to be in between superpowers.” And since the radar was supposed to be on a former Soviet military base, “People started to somehow compare [it to] the Soviet occupation.”

The film focuses on Jan Neoral, the mayor of Trokavec, a small town near the military base. He is one of the opponents, and the film shows him crusading to prevent the radar from happening. Czech Peace also follows the other side in the form of government spokesperson Tomas Klvana, who spends his time trying to explain the radar to people who wish to hear nothing of it.

The tensions are evident in one of the first scenes of the film, when Czech poet Ivan Martin Jirous, who is pro-radar, verbally attacks protesters gathered in a public square. One of the protesters winds him up by claiming American soldiers got what they deserved in Vietnam, causing Jirous to angrily push and shove the man.

“That’s what we recognized during the film production,” said Remunda. “That actually for most of the sides it was difficult for them to come out with some rational explanations of their position.”

Of course, not everything the Bush administration told the Czech people was true; only after the Obama administration came to power was it discovered that plans for the radar were less solid than most people thought. “Obama’s administration uncovered that Bush’s administration [was] feeding Czech government and people with not-serious information,” explained Remunda. “It is a question of huge money and lobbying and for us filmmakers or normal citizens, it is almost not possible to discover the real truth, we realized.”

However, Remunda and Klusák were surprised by how little Americans knew about the issue when Czech Peace premiered at Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival in 2010. Meanwhile, the issue was much discussed in countries that disagreed with the radar, such as Russia. While filming for his new project, Remunda discovered that normal citizens knew about the case of the radar in detail. “In any Siberian small village people were informed,” shared Remunda.

The filmmaker is excited to see how Canadian audiences will react to the film, which is intended to be seen under a humorous light. “We meant the film as a comedy about very serious topics,” he explained. “I never try to be focused on some message and try to explain something, I’d rather do my films and the viewer can take the message from the many different situations.”

Czech Peace will play at Cinema Politica April 4 at 7 p.m. For more information, check out cinemapolitica.org

 

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