Artists' Television Access

Author: Fara

  • A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Film Festival

    Saturday August 7,  7pm

    MAQUILAPOLIS

    “City of Factories” Documenting the struggle of women workers in Tijuana.

    “Many consider the U.S.-Mexico border to be ‘the laboratory of the future.’ In Maquilapolis the border is also the site where global capitalism is facing profound resistance. The maquiladora workers are neither helpless victims nor dupes of neo-liberal capitalism, but rather social actors in the full sense of the word”—Rosa-Linda Fregoso, UCSC

    Carmen Durán works the graveyard shift at one of Tijuana’s 800 maquiladoras; she is one of millions of women around the world who labor for poverty level wages in the factories of transnational corporations. When the plant where Carmen worked for six years moved to Indonesia, they try to avoid paying the legally mandated severance pay to which they were entitled by law. Carmen becomes a promotora, a grassroots activist, challenging the usual illegal tactics of the powerful transnationals.

    The filmmakers gave several women workers in Tijuana video cameras to make a record of their struggles, giving the film the intimate feel of video diaries. 68min., 2006

    Saturday August 7, 8:30pm

    9 STAR HOTEL

    A story of Palestinian workers struggling for survival under Israeli occupation.

    This unflinching documentary follows Ahmed and Muhammad, two of the many Palestinians who illegally cross the border into the Israeli city of Modi’in in search of work. Together they share food, belongings and stories, and live under the constant threat of imprisonment from Israeli soldiers and police. With raw, handheld images, this disconcerting yet touching film documents friendship, nostalgia and the uncompromising urge to survive. 2007, 78min., Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.

    ———-

    SUN. AUGUST 8, 5PM, $6

    CUBA: AN AFRICAN ODYSSEY (Part 1: Congo and Guinea Bissau)

    SUN. AUGUST 8, 7:30PM, $6

    CUBA: AN AFRICAN ODYSSEY (Part 2: Angola)

    In this ambitious and revealing documentary, Egyptian-French filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri traces the history of Cuban solidarity with African liberation movements in the 1960s and 70s. It begins in 1965 when Che Guevara led a group of Cuban revolutionary fighters in an unsuccessful attempt to support the struggle for true independence in the Congo. It then moves to Cuban’s role in the struggles against Portuguese/NATO colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and Angola.

    Cuba: An African Odyssey combines remarkable archival footage—much of it never before seen in the U.S.—with an amazing cast of participants showing Cuba’s pivotal role in the liberation movements in Africa. Over 300,000 Cubans fought alongside African revolutionaries, one of many examples of Cuba’s true internationalism.

  • C Bruno

    Film shoot at ATA

  • Right Window (Opening Reception)


    Neil LeDoux
    “Come On, You Son of a Bitch”
    curated by Dodie Bellamy
    August 1 – 28, 2010

    Opening: Sunday, August 1, 5 – 8 p.m.

    Right Window is pleased to present a new installation by Louisiana-born, San Francisco-based artist Neil LeDoux.

    The exhibition takes its name and its imagery from the finale of Season 5 of the now-defunct ABC TV series Lost, which memorably ended with Juliet (spoilers ahead) grabbing the detonator to a nuclear bomb and crying out, “Come on, you son of a bitch,” while blowing up the whole world to a white screen. The episode, titled, “Fade to White,” will be playing on the ATA screen during the exhibition’s opening.

    In response, LeDoux attempts, like a magician, to make a piece of art that will go away completely. Specifically he is creating a large watercolor designed to fade to white in the sun of Valencia Street over the course of his month-long residency. Will the painting completely disappear? Will a ghost remain? Only time will tell.

    LeDoux was inspired not only by Lost, but by a previous exhibition at Right Window (Christine Wertheim: “The Plastic Exploding Inevitable,” September 2008) in which Alicia Escott’s delicate painting on a plastic takeout container lost color and definition over a month of bright San Francisco weather. In addition, this work addresses the impermanence of Tibetan sand paintings, created during hours of intensive labor, then swept away in an instant, by Buddhist monks.

    Neil LeDoux (b. 1976) is currently working on his MFA at the California College of the Arts. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the California College of the Arts and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2009, he had a solo exhibition, “The fountain of giant teardrops,” at San Francisco’s Silverman Gallery.