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Apropos of this week's thread on governance: Begin forwarded message: Date: October 8, 2008 6:20:25 PM MDT Subject: sfx News: Documentary Screening, Friday, October 10 at 7:00 pm
| | Featuring interviews with: Eduardo Galeano, Amy Goodman, Emir Sader, Martha Harnecker, Ward Churchill, and Leonardo Avritzer as well as cooperative and community members, elected representatives, academics, and activists from Brazil, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina, United States, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, and more.
| Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas (October 10, 6:30 pm)
With less than a month away from one of the most important elections in U.S. history, everyone is talking about elections but few people are talking about democracy. Santa Fe Complex is proud to host a screening of Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas, a new independent documentary film that takes us across the Americas - from Venezuela's Communal Councils, to Brazil's Participatory Budgeting, from Constitutional Assemblies to grassroots movements, recuperated factories and cooperatives - to search for the answer to one of the most fundamental questions of our time: What is democracy? Produced and directed by Michael Fox & Silvia Leindecker, and distributed by PM Press, the film asks, "What is democracy?" Across the world, 120 countries now have at least the minimum trappings of democracy - the freedom to vote for all citizens - but the filmmakers argue this is just the beginning not the end. They believe representative politics in the Americas is in crisis following decades of US-backed dictatorships, civil wars and devastating structural adjustment policies in South America, and corporate control, electoral corruption, and fraud in the North. Fox says, "Citizens are now choosing to redefine democracy under their own terms: local, direct, and participatory." He offers examples including Brazilian Worker's Party, which altered the concept of local government in 1989 with participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, allowing residents to participate directly in the allocation of city funds. Ten years later, Fox says, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was swept into power with the promise of granting direct participation to the Venezuelan people, who have now formed tens of thousands of self-organized communal councils across that country. And, he points to the Southern Cone of South America - Argentina, Chile and Uruguay - where cooperative and recuperated factory numbers have grown. "Across the Americas social movements and constitutional assemblies are taking authority away from the ruling elites and putting power into the hands of their members and citizens," Fox concludes. The program starts at 7:00 at Santa Fe Complex, 632 Agua Fria St. Parking is in the rear of the building via Romero Street. For more information, call Santa Fe Complex at 505/216.7562. | About Sílvia Leindecker: Sílvia Leindecker is a Brazilian documentary film maker, a philosopher and independent photographer who has shot for the Spanish news agency EFE, Germany's Politik magazine, and numerous independent projects, advertisement and film productions. About Michael Fox: Michael Fox is a freelance journalist, translator, reporter and documentary film maker based in South America. He is a former staff reporter for Venezuelanlaysis, a radio correspondent for Free Speech Radio News, and his articles have been published with Yes Magazine, Earth Island Journal, NACLA and The Nation online. | Santa Fe Complex is located in the Railyard Art District within walking distance of the hotels, restaurants and shops at the plaza downtown. We're housed in two facilities, the project space at 624 Agua Fria and the work space at 632 Agua Fria. The conference area contains meeting rooms and facilities for short-term use associated with on-going sfComplex projects. The project space houses the great room, where we hold events and offer Internet access, working facilities, a coffee lounge and work carrels for laptop users. While there is parking at 624 Agua Fria, the Romero Street parking lot is more conveniently located for the 632 facility. Romero St. is an old-style Santa Fe ox-cart road just east of the 624 driveway. Follow it until it opens up to two lanes and turn hard right into the parking lot for 632. Here's a map to our location. For more information, call Don Begley at 505/216.7562. | | | | Santa Fe Complex | 624 Agua Fria | Santa Fe | NM | 87501 | ============================================================
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