The Poverty of Student Life: A Re-Education
Monday November 23rd - 7:30PM
Brecht Forum
451 West Street, New York, NY 10014
This is a screening we've been planning for a while, really since we
first started this summer. Our last-minute announcement of the program
on the 19th, the day of massive protests walkouts and occupations at
UCLA, the latest in a series of student unrest throughout California
this season, brings all the more urgency to the event.
We show
two films from 40 years ago not to wallow in nostalgia for the student
movements of the mythic 1960's, but to provide a foundation and point
of departure for a contemporary conversation. Since last year's actions
at The New School and NYU, as well as abroad, the student movement has
revived itself as one of the most exciting and inspiring places of
dissent and confrontation.
Ever since our screening of One PM (1970) last month, we've been looking for an opportunity to further
explore Ocean Hill-Brownsville, the setting of a bizarre scene in the
film where Rip Torn and Godard, along with Pennebaker Leacock and Mary
Lampson, create a spectacle in an unnamed classroom. Newsreel's
Community Control also forces us to re-think the university system as
the main point of contention in student struggle, as it details an
experiment in engaged community takeover in a few school districts here
in New York City.
This is the fifth in a series of programs
where we've revisited the Newsreel catalog as a means of reexamining
the evolution of the Left and grassroots organizing. Past screenings
included Yippie 6/28, Bobby Seale 8/26, Break and Enter 9/2, and The
Case Against Lincoln Center 10/16. It also comes right on the heels of
events at the Brecht Forum on Columbia 68 (11/16) and the Fordham SDS
(11/20).
--San Francisco State: On Strike - Newsreel, 1969, 25 minutes
--Community Control - Newsreel, 1969, 50 minutes
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 75 minutes | Digital Projection
Discussion with:
--Pam C. Nogales of the Platypus Affiliated Society
--Luz Schreiber of the Committee in Defense of the Children's Learning Center at Hunter College, and Ollin Imagination
--Jitu Weusi - teacher, principal, member of the African American Teachers Association, co-founder of The East (1969-1985)
--more TBA
Co-presented by the Platypus Affiliated Society
(All of the Newsreel films are available from Third World Newsreel.)