A film by Dario Azzellini & Oliver Ressler, 94 min., 2010

“We have to decide for ourselves what we want. We are the ones who know about our needs and what is happening in our community”, Omayra Peréz explains confidently. She wants to convince her community, located on the hillside of the poor districts of Caracas, to found a Consejo Comunal (community council). In more than 30.000 Consejos Comunales the Venezuelan inhabitants decide on their concerns collectively via assemblies. Omayra is supported by the activists of the nearby shantytown “Emiliano Hernández”, which has had a Consejo Comunal for three years already. The inhabitants there managed to get a doctor from the governmental program “Barrio Adentro”, who treats everyone free of charge. They also got money to renovate their houses and replaced over a dozen of sheet iron huts by new houses. All of these activities and a lot more have been organized via the Consejo Comunal. By local self-organization from below several working groups have been established on self-decided topics and decisions are made in assemblies.

Several Consejos Comunales can form a Comuna and finally a communal town. The film “Comuna Under Construction” follows these developments throughout the hillside of the shantytowns of Caracas and the vast and wet plains of Barinas in the countryside. The councils are built from below and alongside the existing institutions and are supposed to overcome the existing state through self-government. In an assembly for the construction of the communal town “Antonio José de Sucre” Ramon Virigay from the independent peasant’s organization Frente Nacional Campesino Ezequiel Zamora (FNCEZ) reminds the delegates of the participating Consejos Comunales: “Even if we definitely need the government agencies at the moment, we have to be independent tomorrow due to our development. We cannot depend solely on the state forever.” For this reason the councils are to establish own structures of production and distribution in order to achieve autonomy.

The assemblies are a central element of the film “Comuna Under Construction”. The film starts off in the well organized Consejo Comunal Emiliano Hernández located in one of the shantytowns of Caracas. It then shows the intentions of forming Comunas and a communal town in rural Barinas and ends in Petare, a gigantic shantytown of the agglomeration of Caracas where there are 29 Consejos Comunales intending to build the Comuna of Maca.
Is it even possible to bring together state and autonomy? Every one of the Consejos Comunales spokes-persons has positive as well as negative experiences with the institutions in store to talk about. In an assembly in Petare the grass-roots activist Yusmeli Patiño blames a high government representative: “We are losing our credibility because of the incompetence of the state institutions”. But there are also members of the institutions who make a big effort to accompany the basis in making its own decisions. The relation between the basis and the institutions is marked by cooperation as well as conflict. But the Consejos Comunales also have internal difficulties; participation has to be learned.
Progresses as well as setbacks mark the difficult process of people actually taking the power of deciding on their own lives and environment by themselves.

Original Spanish version with German and English subtitles available.

Concept, film editing, production: Dario Azzellini & Oliver Ressler
Camera: Volkmar Geiblinger, Oliver Ressler
Sound, sound editing, supervisory editor: Rudi Gottsberger
Production assistant: Adriana Rivas
Image editing: Markus Koessl, David Grohe

Grants: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur; Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien; Stiftung Umverteilen; Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung; Solifond der Hans Böckler Stiftung; Fraktion die Linke im EU-Parlament; Bundestagsfraktion die Linke; Netzwerk e.V.

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Austria License

“Comuna Under Construction” (Part 1: Emiliano Hernández)

“Comuna Under Construction” (Part 2: Barinas)

“Comuna Under Construction” (Part 3: Petare)

A film by Oliver Ressler, 118 min., 2009

“What is democracy?” is not one question, but is actually two questions. On the one hand, the question relates to conditions of the current, parliamentary representative democracies that are scrutinized critically in this project. On the other hand, the question traces different approaches to what a more democratic system might look like and which organizational forms it could take.

The project asked “What is democracy?” to numerous activists and political analysts in 15 cities around the world, in Amsterdam, Berkeley, Berlin, Bern, Budapest, Copenhagen, Moscow, New York, Rostock, San Francisco, Sydney, Taipei, Tel Aviv, Thessaloniki and Warsaw.
The interviews have been recorded on video since January 2007. Even though all interviewees were asked the same question, the result was a multiplicity of different perspectives and viewpoints from people living in states that are usually labeled “democracies”.

This pool of interviews builds the basis for a film in eight parts, which (re)presents a kind of global analysis about the deep political crises of the Western democratic model. In one video, Adam Ostolski (Warsaw) explains that originally “the modern idea of democracy was connected to the notion of progress” and parliamentary states “had some tendency to become more and more democratic by including new types of political actors, such as workers and women. […] But since the 1980s, since the neoliberal trend in politics and economy we have a regression of democracy.” Lize Mogel (New York) notes that situation changed in such a way, that when you think about representative democracy today “you are not necessarily talking about individuals being represented, but more capital being represented.” Nikos Panagos (Thessaloniki) even argues that “representation and democracy are incompatible terms. Therefore, under no circumstances could the present system be called a democracy. It is just a sophisticated form of oligarchy.” While some subjects in the videos elaborate their ideas of direct democracy or decision-making processes of indigenous communities, David McNeill (Sydney) raises the issue of whether it makes sense “to continue contesting for the right to own and define the term democracy” or whether “it has been so corrupted and polluted by the conservatives that claimed ownership of it, that it is better to be surrendered.”

The film discusses the contested notion of “democracy”, which is misused for the maintenance of order by those in power, while at the same time “democracy” still represents an ideal hundreds of million people in the South desperately want to achieve. Today it seems almost impossible to be against “democracy”, even though it is getting emptier and emptier. A potential strategy could try to fill what is called “democracy” with new meaning. In this sense, the film presents a multi-layered discourse on democracy, which expresses a broad field of opinions that go beyond the borders of nation-states and continents.

The film has eight parts with the following titles: “Rethinking representation”, “Politics of exclusions”, “Secrecy instead of democratic transparency”, “New democracies?”, “Is representative democracy a democracy?”, “Direct democracy”, “Reclaiming Indigenous politics” and “Should we consign the Western democracy model to the ash heap of history?”

Concept, interviews, camera and sound recording: Oliver Ressler
Interviewees: Kuan-Hsing Chen, Noortje Marres, Lin Chalozin Dovrat, Thanasis Triaridis, Tone Olaf Nielsen, Jo van der Spek, Cheikh Papa Sakho, Wolf Dieter Narr, Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia, Joanna Erbel, Yvonne Riano, Trevor Paglen, Tadeusz Kowalik, Adam Ostolski, Boris Kagarlitsky, Michal Kozlowski, Lize Mogel, Rick Ayers, Nikos Panagos, Macha Kurzina, Gabor Csillag, Zachary Running Wolf, Jenny Munroe, David McNeill
Video editing and production: Oliver Ressler
Image editing and subtitles: David Grohe
Animation: Zanny Begg
Composition and sound editing: Rudi Gottsberger
Footage: Sierpien 80 (© Telewizja Polska S.A.)
Special thanks to Louisa Avgita, Kai Bauer, Zanny Begg, Karen Bennett, Christine Boehler, Paul Chatterton, Amy Cheng, Eyal Danon, Hilla Dayan, Miklos Erhardt, Takis Fotopoulos, Frédérique Gautier, Peter Grabher, Hou Hanru, Laila Huber, Manray Hsu, Jens Kastner, Caroline Lensing-Hebben, Geert Lovink, Margarethe Makovec, Davor Miskovic, Nikos Panagos, Ted Purves, Gerald Raunig, Natalia Romik, Walter Seidl, Katharina Schlieben, Gregory Sholette, Kuba Szreder, Nora Theiss, Dmitry Vilensky, Tom Waibel
Translation for English subtitles: Harold Otto
Translation for German subtitles: Otmar Lichtenwörther
Translation for French subtitles: Lucile Gourraud-Beyron

Grants: ERSTE Foundation, Kulturamt der Steiermärkischen Landesregierung, Kulturamt Stadt Graz, Otto-Mauer-Fonds, Biennale de Lyon, 2009

“What Is Democracy?”, Part 1 (Rethinking representation)

“What Is Democracy?”, Part 2 (Politics of exclusion)

“What Is Democracy?”, Part 3 (Secrecy instead of democratic transparency)

“What Is Democracy?”, Part 4 (New democracies?)

“What Is Democracy?”, Part 5 (Is representative democracy a democracy?)

“What Is Democracy?”, Part 6 (Direct democracy)

“What Is Democracy?”, Part 7 (Reclaiming Indigenous politics)

“What Is Democracy?”, Part 8 (Should we consign the Western democracy model to the ash heap of history?)

A film by Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, 40 min., 2008

“What Would It Mean To Win?” was filmed on the blockades at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in June 2007. In their first collaborative film Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler focus on the current state of the counter-globalisation movement in a project which grows out of both artists’ preoccupation with globalisation and its discontents. The film, which combines documentary footage, interviews, and animation sequences, is structured around three questions pertinent to the movement: Who are we? What is our power? What would it mean to win?

Almost ten years after “Seattle” this film explores the impact this movement has had on contemporary politics. Seattle has been described as the birthplace for the “movement of movements” and marked a time when resistance to capitalist globalisation emerged in industrialised nations. In many senses it has been regarded as the time when a new social subject – the multitude – entered the political landscape. Recently the counter-globalisation movement has gone through a certain malaise accentuated by the shifts in global politics in the post 911 context.

The protests in Heiligendamm seemed to re-assert the confidence, inventiveness and creativity of the counter-globalisation movement. In particular the five finger tactic – where protesters spread out across the fields of Rostock slipping around police lines – proved successful in establishing blockades in all roads into Heiligendamm. Staff working for the G8 summit were forced to enter and leave the meeting by helicopter or boat thus providing a symbolic victory to the movement.

“What Would It Mean To Win?”, as the title implies, addresses this central question for the movement. During the Seattle demonstrations “we are winning” was a popular graffiti slogan that captured the sense of euphoria that came with the birth of a new movement. Since that time however this slogan has been regarded in a much more speculative manner. This film aims to move beyond the question of whether we are “winning” or not by addressing what would it actually mean to win.

When addressing the question “what would it mean to win?” John Holloway quotes Subcomandante Marcos who once described “winning” as the ability to live an “infinite film program” where participants could re-invent themselves each day, each hour, each minute. The animated sequences take this as their starting point to explore how ideas of social agency, struggle and winning are incorporated into our imagination of politics.

The film was recorded in English and German and exists also in a French subtitled version. “What Would It Mean To Win?” will be presented in screenings in a variety of contexts and will also be part of the upcoming installation “Jumps and Surprises” by Begg and Ressler, which will present a broader perspective of different approaches to the counter-globalisation movement.

• Concept, Interviews, Film Editing, Production: Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler
• Interviewees: Emma Dowling, John Holloway, Adam Idrissou, Tadzio Mueller, Michal Osterweil, Sarah T.
• Camera: Oliver Ressler
• Animation: Zanny Begg
• Sound: Kate Carr
• Image Editing: Markus Koessl
• Sound Editing: Rudi Gottsberger, Oliver Ressler
• Special thanks to Turbulence, Holy Damn It, Conrad Barrett
• Grants: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur; College of Fine Art Research Grants Scheme, Sydney

The French version of the film is online at http://www.art-act.fr/?p=44