A screening of an Occupy Wall Street film by the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective at NYU’s “This Is What Democracy Looks Like” exhibition (photo by the author)
Since the raid on Occupy Wall Street’s home in Zuccotti Park, news on the Arts and Culture front of the movement has slowed down a bit. Yet one OWS art topic that has yet to receive much attention are the films created by protesters and affiliated artists that express and document the uprising of the 99%. Video and film are possibly the most powerful medium to track developments of the movement, used as both a social media tool and immediate evidence of police brutality as well as an artistic outlet for statements on the myriad of issues surrounding OWS.
This week, The Huffington Post and the New York Times announced that Rooftop films, a nonprofit known for showing movies al fresco, will be screening a series of films that relate to several of the sparks of OWS, including the financial crisis and environmental concerns.
As part of Rooftop’s “Films for the Occupation” program, films such as The Battle for Brooklyn, a chronicle of the controversial Atlantic Yards development in downtown Brooklyn, and The Flaw, which launches an investigation into the financial crisis, will be screened from December 13 – 15 at various venues. On Friday, December 16, the Brooklyn film collective Uniondocs will also show a selection of shorts by activists and filmmakers who documented OWS.
While the Rooftop series will mostly focus on films that are tangential to OWS, we thought it pertinent to post some of the films that show the movement itself, such as the short documentaries of Meerkat Media Collective and The Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective. Meerkat’s video, Consensus, looks at how OWS functions as a direct democracy with their use of the sometimes productive, sometimes frustrating human mic.
Alex Higgen’s of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective delves into the micro community that thrived at Zuccotti park pre-raid. Both videos are even more important now to the movement, considering that much of what they document has been eradicated by the raid.
In addition to these contributions by filmmakers, there is also Occupy Cinema, an open collective that “uses the moving image to aid and nourish the Occupy movement.” In November the group brought OWS’ original poster of a ballerina balancing on top of the Wall Street bull to life. Below is a short clip of the projection they created.
Occupy Cinema // Charging Bull // Tuesday, December 6 from Occupy Cinema on Vimeo.
