[oberlist] Fwd: [Newsletter] Film screenings: Socialism Failed, Capitalism is Bankrupt. What comes Next?

[stefan rusu]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Oliver Ressler <oliver at ressler.at>
Date: Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 2:07 PM
Subject: [Newsletter] Film screenings: Socialism Failed, Capitalism is
Bankrupt. What comes Next?
To: newsletter at ressler.at


**
SOCIALISM FAILED, CAPITALISM IS BANKRUPT. WHAT COMES NEXT?

A film by Oliver Ressler, 19 min, 2010


Upcoming screenings:

Beijing New Youth Film Festival, Bejing (PRC), 14/09/11, 2 pm
http://www.austrosinoartsprogram.org

“Afghan-Kuzminki. Human Oratorio”, Victoria Gallery, part of 4th Moscow
Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow (RU), 25/09/11, 8 pm
http://4th.moscowbiennale.ru/en/program/special_projects/afgan_en.html

Document 9, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (UK)
21/10/11, 8 pm; followed by a Q & A session with O. Ressler, led by
Katarzyna Kosmala
http://documentfilmfestival.org


The 2-channel video installation “Socialism Failed, Capitalism is Bankrupt.
What comes Next?” is currently presented in the exhibition:
“The Workers”
MASS MoCA – Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams (USA)
till Mar 15, 2012
http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=631


“Socialism Failed, Capitalism is Bankrupt. What comes Next?” focuses on the
political and economic situation in the Republic of Armenia, one of the
successor states of the Soviet Union. The film was recorded in summer 2010
in Yerevan’s largest bazaar, called “Bangladesh”. Every day more than 1000
people try to survive as traders in the “Bangladesh” bazaar, where an
average vendor does not earn more than 100 to 250 Euros per month. In the
film, the market’s traders talk about their struggles to survive during
crises in a post-socialist state that closed most Soviet-era factories and
dissolved social safety nets. The market’s traders, primarily former
factory-workers, describe how their living conditions worsened after the end
of the Soviet Union; they speak about their hopes and expectations for
social change. While they live in misery, a small but highly influential
class of corrupt politicians and super-rich oligarchs team up with
international corporations in order to fill their pockets with profits from
transferring state property and licenses for mining.
A former mathematics professor Levon Yeremyan, who now survives by trading
in the “Bangladesh” bazaar, notes, “95 per cent of people work and get the
minimum wage, which is ridiculously low by European standards, and 5 per
cent live like Arab sheikhs.” Most people would definitely agree with his
description of the wide gap between the impoverished masses and the
oligarchs in Armenia. This deep divide contradicts the official flattering
data.

Concept, camera, sound recording, video editing and production: Oliver
Ressler
Interviews, translation and editing assistance: Arpineh Galfayan
Audio mix and color correction: Rudi Gottsberger

The project was done during a residency in Yerevan in the framework of the
project “Eat and Work”, directed by Anna Barseghian, supported by Utopiana
and BM:UKK.


Check out the film online at http://www.ressler.at/socialism_failed/


Image: 2-channel video installation and floor piece at Bunkier Sztuki
Contemporary Art Gallery, Krakow (PL)



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