FryingPanFire

If you haven’t seen this yet, watch it now.

[Courtesy http://vimeo.com/user5235544]

I’ve been making a series of short films and a promo for the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.
The London session 20-22 November 2010 will focus on corporate complicity in Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Some very clever people will be there and it will most likely be accused of a) preaching to the converted, b) not having any [...]

On 10 November 2010, over 50,000 students and lecturers from across the United Kingdom marched in London against the coalition government’s plans to increase university fees.
The march eventually reached Millbank Tower – once the Labour party’s headquarters – now home to the Conservative party.
Some people managed to get to the roof. One person had [...]

I wonder if David Cameron has picked up some handy tips in China on how to handle student protests. Much too much has been said about the “violent minority” and “inadequate policing”.
We’re not looking at a “violent minority” or a “hijacking”. The people on the roof and the people smashing windows are the same [...]

For those of you aware of my latest project, a documentary on Indian cotton farmer suicides, pesticides and fashion tentatively called Dirty White Gold, you’ll be aware I’ve re-edited a new taster for it.

Since I put it out at the beginning of September, there’s been a little press buzz around it as well as a [...]

The argument that mob censorship is what stopped Tony Blair from going ahead with his London book signing and subsequent private shindig at Tate Modern holds no water. A much larger mob of millions in 2003 marched against the invasion of Iraq in 800 cities around the world. But in those days Blair ran Britain. [...]

Up to 26 Indian cotton farmers a day commit suicide by drinking pesticides to kill themselves out of debt.
This taster is for Dirty White Gold, a film by Leah Borromeo about cotton, chemicals and consumerism’s real casualties.
When you bag a bargain, who pays for it?

CREDITS
Director, Producer, Presenter, Camera: Leah Borromeo
Executive Producer: Claire Lewis
Editor: Katrin Maria [...]

Interesting perspective from Chommo’s own backyard. Goes into the ideas of how an institution like MIT could, on one hand, provide the brains to progress the freeing up of information and, on the other, be the same force that funds the brains to create new and more efficient ways of killing people.
Read here.

The Crown Prosecution Service has said there is no charge to answer in the case of a newspaper vendor who died during the G20 protests in London. So the police culture of impunity continues.

The police officer filmed pushing Ian Tomlinson to the ground will not face criminal charges, the Crown Prosecution Service said [...]

…for the Index on Censorship.
They recently had Sir Tom Stoppard and the Belarus Free Theatre on at the Free Word Centre.
Nick Cohen wrote a smashing review in the Guardian about how to make a drama out of a crisis.
Belarus is possibly Europe’s last dictatorship where freedom of speech and expression are, to state the bleeding [...]