Heard of the antiglobalist film "The Take"?

[Minstrel Boy]

I expect it'll have a very limited run, but if you get a chance, don't miss it. It's a Salt of the Earth for the antiglobalist movement.

It's a National Film Board of Canada production, directed by Avi Lewis and written by his wife, Naomi Klein.

From the website of the film:

In the wake of Argentina’s spectacular economic collapse in 2001, Latin America’s most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act — the take — has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head.

Director/producer Avi Lewis (Counterspin) and writer/producer and renowned author Naomi Klein (No Logo) take viewers inside the lives of ordinary visionaries, as they reclaim their work, their dignity and their democracy.
http://www.nfb.ca/thetake/

And a New Yorker review:

The director Avi Lewis and the writer Naomi Klein (the author of “No Logo”) have done something extraordinary: they have dramatized the effects of the flight of capital. Spending several months in Argentina, the filmmakers befriended workers who were trying to reopen the automotive factory that used to employ them. The men, fallen members of Argentina’s once robust middle class, shed tears as they see the ruin and decay of their former shop, and, with the help of a labor advocate, they begin the uphill process of wresting the factory from the absentee owners and running the business as a coöperative. Their soft-spoken leader, Freddy, makes a wonderfully unguarded subject for the camera, and the story also has a tanned, theatrical villain: the former President Carlos Menem, who is running for reëlection and who, in a former incarnation, privatized state-owned companies and linked the Argentinean peso to the U.S. dollar. (The results were disastrous.) One wishes that the filmmakers had taken the time to fully explain a crucial court decision, only because the workers in “The Take” are so admirable, displaying a melancholy eloquence and a genuine revolutionary spirit.
http://www.onf.ca/thetake/flash/viewPress.php?id=42

[benito]

1. YES!! I saw an interview with the makers on

democracynow.org.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/20/144215&mode=thread&tid=25

I visit www.thetake.org once a week to see when it will come out on video!
See also
http://www.filmforum.com/films/take.html

edit for more complete URL

[bryant69]

2. There were Similar schemes during our Great Depression

Upton Sinclair proposed a similar Idea during his run for Governor of California (he also, unwisely, suggested that all the homeless in America would want to come to California because of how great he would make it). The story of what he proposed and how he got beat is worth checking out. One starting point is his own memoirs of teh campaign. I, Candidate for Governor and How I Got Licked ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520081986/qid=1099275334/sr=1-29/ref=sr_1_29/104-9983146-0223922?v=glance&s=books)


Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[lostnfound]

3. Yes! Can't wait, won't miss it. nt

[AliceWonderland]

4. Sounds very interesting!

I must have missed that interview on DN, so I'll have to check it out. Look forward to seeing this film.

[ghostsofgiants]

5. I was reading about this on Naomi's site a while back I think.

On a slightly related note, I bought No Logo yesterday...finally...