Coming Soon
OUR NEIGHBORS ARE THE BEST BARRICADE: SQUATTERS’ SHORTS
1918 - 2020
Director
Juliet Bashore
Charlie Chaplin
Frank Lebon
Newsreel
Starring
Squatters of the World
Runtime
137 minutes
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A collection of shorts spanning over a century of cinema in celebration and interrogation of the act of squatting.
THE BATTLE OF TUNTENHAUS PART I & II (1991/1993)
The wall has fallen. Berlin has reunified. But there are new zones of transgression to be carved out and explored. Mainzer Straße is a hot spot of squatters and anti-fascist fights. One of the squats on this notorious strees, the Tuntenhaus (‘House of Queers’), becomes a specific target of both their neo-Nazi neighbors and the iron fist of the capitalist state. Juliet Bashore’s legendary documentary follows the daily struggle of the queens and queers to create and defend a place for themselves in the chaos and unrest after the fall of communism. The extraordinary union of the anarchist/autonomous and gay scenes meets the onlooking yet involved sympathizers, who also end up in conflict with the squatters as a result of their filming. The film is a unique testimony to the violent and momentous eviction of the people from the streets.
A DOG’S LIFE (1918)
Charlie Champlin’s Little Tramp is the patron saint of sleeping rough. In A DOG’S LIFE he finds companionship with two fellow outcasts - Scraps, a stray mongrel, and Edna Purviance as a young girl exploited as a hostess in a disreputable dive - on his quest to find a safe place to stay. Chaplin’s finest short film, representing the apex of his mastery over the developing medium, is sophisticated, uproarious and beautiful. Bursting with immaculately fine-tuned slapstick and just the right dollop of achingly raw sentiment, it’s one of the finest films ever made about being poor.
DIDDLY SQUAT (2020)
With a baby on the way and pressure mounting from all sides, it is time for Archy and Rachel to get their act together and find somewhere to live, whatever it takes. When Kenny, a local pillar of the community, returns to his beloved carpentry studio and finds his livelihood threatened, we learn just how far he’ll go to protect his home. Told from the perspective of both the squatter and the squatted, DIDDLY SQUAT is a hyperkinetic urban short story told with electrifying style. Live action, still photos, and animation are all incorporated by young British photographer and filmmaker Frank Lebon as he fuses together influences ranging from Dziga Vertov to Ken Loach to Satoshi Kon in his narrative debut. Featuring a pulsating score by Mount Kimbie.
BREAK AND ENTER (1971)
Produced by the pioneering radical documentary collective Newsreel, BREAK AND ENTER captures the militant historical antecedents to tomorrow’s housing reclamation movement. In 1970, several hundred displaced Puerto Rican and Dominican families, with women in the forefront, reclaim housing left vacant amidst New York City’s “urban renewal” programs. They pull the boards off the doors, clean and repair the buildings and enact Operation Move-In, a powerful head-on confrontation with the material forces of gentrification.
“The film is one of the first to represent working class Latinos - particularly Latinas - as active agents of change in new social movements. BREAK AND ENTER can be understood as part of the Puerto Rican cultural renaissance or innovative cultural formations that emerged in the city during the late 1960s and unsettled the distinctions between art and politics as well as imagined new ways of being in the city.” - Frances Negron-Muntaner
THE BATTLE OF TUNTENHAUS PART I & II (1991/1993)
The wall has fallen. Berlin has reunified. But there are new zones of transgression to be carved out and explored. Mainzer Straße is a hot spot of squatters and anti-fascist fights. One of the squats on this notorious strees, the Tuntenhaus (‘House of Queers’), becomes a specific target of both their neo-Nazi neighbors and the iron fist of the capitalist state. Juliet Bashore’s legendary documentary follows the daily struggle of the queens and queers to create and defend a place for themselves in the chaos and unrest after the fall of communism. The extraordinary union of the anarchist/autonomous and gay scenes meets the onlooking yet involved sympathizers, who also end up in conflict with the squatters as a result of their filming. The film is a unique testimony to the violent and momentous eviction of the people from the streets.
A DOG’S LIFE (1918)
Charlie Champlin’s Little Tramp is the patron saint of sleeping rough. In A DOG’S LIFE he finds companionship with two fellow outcasts - Scraps, a stray mongrel, and Edna Purviance as a young girl exploited as a hostess in a disreputable dive - on his quest to find a safe place to stay. Chaplin’s finest short film, representing the apex of his mastery over the developing medium, is sophisticated, uproarious and beautiful. Bursting with immaculately fine-tuned slapstick and just the right dollop of achingly raw sentiment, it’s one of the finest films ever made about being poor.
DIDDLY SQUAT (2020)
With a baby on the way and pressure mounting from all sides, it is time for Archy and Rachel to get their act together and find somewhere to live, whatever it takes. When Kenny, a local pillar of the community, returns to his beloved carpentry studio and finds his livelihood threatened, we learn just how far he’ll go to protect his home. Told from the perspective of both the squatter and the squatted, DIDDLY SQUAT is a hyperkinetic urban short story told with electrifying style. Live action, still photos, and animation are all incorporated by young British photographer and filmmaker Frank Lebon as he fuses together influences ranging from Dziga Vertov to Ken Loach to Satoshi Kon in his narrative debut. Featuring a pulsating score by Mount Kimbie.
BREAK AND ENTER (1971)
Produced by the pioneering radical documentary collective Newsreel, BREAK AND ENTER captures the militant historical antecedents to tomorrow’s housing reclamation movement. In 1970, several hundred displaced Puerto Rican and Dominican families, with women in the forefront, reclaim housing left vacant amidst New York City’s “urban renewal” programs. They pull the boards off the doors, clean and repair the buildings and enact Operation Move-In, a powerful head-on confrontation with the material forces of gentrification.
“The film is one of the first to represent working class Latinos - particularly Latinas - as active agents of change in new social movements. BREAK AND ENTER can be understood as part of the Puerto Rican cultural renaissance or innovative cultural formations that emerged in the city during the late 1960s and unsettled the distinctions between art and politics as well as imagined new ways of being in the city.” - Frances Negron-Muntaner