REBEL FILMS

– Toronto Socialist Action Presents –

REBEL FILMS

Friday, September 28 – 7 p.m. Students in Revolt – Chile, Mexico and Quebec, 2012. 54 minutes (total) Co-sponsored by Youth for Socialist Action. Three short documentaries are joined together by Rebel Films to show the rise of students and youths around the world in action against the corporate agenda. It depicts street protests challenging reactionary education ‘reforms’ in Chile, electoral fraud (once again) in Mexico, and the university fees hikes and repressive legislation in Quebec. This event is co-sponsored by Youth for Socialist Action. YSA leaders Tyler Mackinnon andEvan Engering will lead off the open discussion following the screening.

Friday, October 5 – 7 p.m. American Autumn, 75 minutes, 2012. Shot on the front lines and meeting spaces of the Occupy movement in New York, Boston, and Washington, DC from the earliest days through the end of January 2012, this is an inside, looking-out view of the Occupy movement. With interviews and insight from key organizers, thinkers and activists, writer/ director Dennis Trainor Jr weaves commentary and a fearless style that often puts the viewer right between police and protesters. The film includes an original score by Goldi, a member of the OWS music Rebel group. Megan Kinch, who edited a weekly paper called “99: Dispatches from Occupy Toronto”, a project of the Toronto Media Co-op, will lead off an open discussion. She was involved in the 2008-2009 CUPE 3903 strike, the G20 protests and environmental justice struggles.

Friday, October 12 – 7 p.m. Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune, 96 minutes, 2010. From civil rights, to the anti-war movement, to the struggles of workers, folksinger Phil Ochs wrote topical songs that engaged his audiences in the issues of the 1960s and 70s. In this biographical documentary, veteran director Kenneth Bowser shows how Phil’s music and his fascinating life story, and his eventual decline into depression and suicide, were intertwined with the history-making events that defined a generation.

Friday, October 19 – 7 p.m. The Big Fix, 89 minutes, 2011. This documentary examines the April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico following the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Josh and Rebecca Tickell, along with Peter Fonda, take us with them on their journey to the Gulf of Mexico for a first hand view of the devastation caused by the BP Oil spill and the whitewashing of the facts.

Friday, October 26 – 7 p.m. Budrus, 70 minutes, 2009. Follows a Palestinian leader who unites Fatah, Hamas and Israelis in a peaceful movement to save his village from destruction. Success eludes them until his 15-year-old daughter jumps into the fray. This documentary will be an eye-opener for many. It tells the story of an on-going non-violent protest movement on the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories, created and led by Palestinians–a people often portrayed as terrorists or fanatics by the Western media.

Friday, November 2 – 7 p.m. Tsar to Lenin, 68 minutes, 1937. First released in 1937, this ranks among the twentieth century’s greatest film documentaries. It presents an extraordinary cinematic account of the Russian Revolution—from the mass uprising which overthrew the centuries-old Tsarist regime in February 1917, to the Bolshevik-led insurrection eight months later that established the first workers’ state, and the final victory in 1921 of the new Soviet regime over counter-revolutionary forces after a three-year-long civil war. Yaskin Kaya, PhD. candidate at York U. and member of SA and Youth for Socialist Action, will lead off an open discussion.

Friday, November 9 – 7 p.m. Exile in Buyukada, 72 minutes, 2002. This excellent documentary/drama is based on the book ‘The Prophet Outcast’, about the 4 years of exile of Leon Trotsky in Istanbul, Turkey. In the eleven years following his expulsion from the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik leader and Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) exposed the crimes of Joseph Stalin through his writings, tried to organize a worldwide current of opposition to capitalism and Stalinism alike. Barry Weisleder, co-editor of Socialist Action newspaper and federal secretary of SA-Canada, will lead off the discussion.

Each of the films in this series will be preceded by a brief introduction,
and will be followed by a commentary, and an open floor discussion period.

OISE, 252 Bloor St. West, Room 2-212

at the St. George Subway Station. Everyone welcome. $4 donation requested.

Please visit: www.socialistaction.ca or call 416 – 461-6942.