21.07.2023

Youth work and film-making
a double screening organised by Leonie Nagel and Tiphanie Kim Mall
Postcards from the Desert Island- a film by Adelita Husny-Bey
2011, 22:23 min
French / English subtitles

Postcards from the Desert Island stems from Husni-Bey’s long-standing interest for anarco-collectivism and the transformative potential of pedagogies invested in understanding and changing power relations in today’s societies. The children who appear in ‘Postcards from the Desert Island’ are students from the Ecole Vitruve, an experimental elementary public institute born in 1962 that practices educational models based on co-operation and non-competitiveness. Borrowing scenarios from William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, the children, aged between 7-11, were asked to build a desert island in their school hall, undirected. In the 3-week workshop the children came to terms with notions of self-management, the lack of institutions, abolition, immigration, the significance of public space and disobedience, through the practice of anarco-collectivism.

Don’t Think So – a film by Wilf Thust 

1980, 42 min.
English / Without subtitles
A group of working-class kids in London’s East End produced a film as part of a workshop at Four Corners*.
The script, set, music and acting were developed spontaneously with the assistance of four adults,
including Wilf Thust. Thust’s subsequent film consists of footage from the workshop as well as previously
unused footage. The film begins with a voice-over reflecting on the workshop and the social and political conditions of those involved in its creation. Thinking of the film as a collective outcome,
Thust also shows footage of the young people’s scrapbook entries and text excerpts.

*Four Corners was founded in 1973 by four young filmmakers Joanna Davis,

Mary Pat Leece, Ronald Peck, and Wilf Thust. Their goal was to work together to develop independent filmmaking, both on the level of production and on the level of films shown on the screen.
At 113 Roman Road in Bethnal Green, London, they set up a cinema and production workshop to make
films and filmmaking accessible to those who had previously been excluded from the practice.

Saturday 22.07.2023
History and present of libertarian music
Presentation and discussion by Florian Eitel

Togehter we will explore the wide range and tradition of music in anarchist struggle from the 19th century
until the present. We will listen to songs from the early working-class anarchist and revolutionary
syndicalism labour unions until today, antimilitarist, pacifists, feminist, antinationalist and antiimperialist,
radical ecological and animal rights struggle songs. We will discuss about continuities and ruptures in
content and music through the centuries and ask about the function of music in socialisation and
mobilisation in anarchists concerns. Florian Eitel is a historian specialized on anarchist music.
Bring your own music and tell us your personal story.  Share your reaction to historical and current songs.
There will be  technical equipment available to listen to the music.
(Computer, Speakers, Turntables, CD- and Tape Player).

The workshop will be hold in different languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish and German.

26.08 2023