Manchester Film Co-operative

Giles · Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 46

Following the request for theme suggestions, there have been 2 themes suggested for series 3 'political violence' and resistance'. There is a general feeling that we should combine the 2 because there's some overlap and some interesting tensions. So what do you think - 'Political Violence and Resistance' for the theme for series 3? Blurb for each below. Are you happy with this for a theme? Any massive objections? If you can post up with your thoughts on this theme here by Fri 30th Jan then, assuming people are generally happy with this theme, we can start getting suggestions about films for the series . . .

Political Violence
Politics always involves conflict and often those conflicts escalate into violence. This is especially evident in contemporary phenomena such as the so-called "War on Terror" and globalised terrorist groups but political violence has taken and continues to take many forms from repressive state violence, institutional violence and torture to the uses of violent means in nationalist and radical political struggles. This theme sets out to explore these different forms of political violence, raising the difficult questions that arise when political power and political conflicts become violent, whether that violence is a tactic of political resistance, a strategy of state power or the conflictual encounter of the two.

Resistance
With everything that is happening today there is a tendency to fatalism which the left can often find is difficult to tackle. I'm thinking of the discussions I'm having with people at the moment in mobilising in support of the Palestinians. But despite the fatalism there is always resistance against oppression and exploitation. And lots of movies reflect this. Some explicitly political - Battle of Algiers Battleship Potemkin - some much less so such as the splendid Romanian film showed last year, East of Bucharest.