Short films on Argentina?s occupied factory movement. May 11, 2006

Grupo Alavío, Argentine direct action and video collective has participated in working class struggles and supported them with audio-visual materials for over 15 years. Grupo Alavío has produced over 50 films dealing with many social conflicts: occupied factories, unemployed worker organizations, political prisoners, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, subway workers struggling for a 6 hour workday, art and Iraq. Alavío just launched the internet community TV station, http://www.agoratv.org

A participant from Grupo Alavío will present several short films on Argentina 30 years after the coup and Argentina?s occupied factory movement. http://www.agoratv.org
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Argentina 30 years after the coup (compilation of short films)
This March 24, Argentines commemorated the 30 year anniversary of the nation's 1976 military coup and the brutal nightmare of state terror that followed.

Letter to the Military Junta, 6min, 1996, Grupo Alavío

Rodolfo Walsh wrote the ?Open Letter to the Military Junta? on the first anniversary of the military coup in 1977 reporting the tortures, mass killings, and thousands of disappearances. The political writer was disappeared just one day after the letter was distributed. This 6 minute video essay reconstructs Walsh?s powerful report, imagery from the bloody dictatorship and the writer?s disappearance.

Escrache a Videla, 12min, 2006, Grupo Alavío

Events to mark the 30 years since Argentina's military junta kicked off with an escrache or ?exposure? protest against the coup's first dictator, Jorge Rafael Videla. Over 10,000 people participated in the protest in front of Videla's home, where he is under house arrest in connection with numerous charges of human rights abuse. Human rights group H.I.J.O.S. brought a crane and gave the ending remarks directly in front of Videla's fifth floor apartment.

Zanon (building resistance), 18min, 2003

In 2001 Zanon?s owner fires the workers at Latin America?s largest ceramics plant in the Southern Province of Neuquén. After resisting outside the plant, the group of workers decide collectively to recuperate and put the plant to produce. In the film, Zanon ceramists narrate their day-to-day work, struggles and hopes to continue production under worker control. Currently, 470 employees work at FaSinPat (Factory without a boss) under worker control.

Compa?eras, 45min, 2005

Compa?eras is a documentary which brings together four South American working women who give testimony of their lives and daily struggles: Magdalena works on a small farm in the province of San Juan; Karina is a train conductor; Regina lives in Villa Fiorito and collects cardboard from the streets, classifies, and then sells it; Nina is a militant from the 1970s, during which time she exiled from Argentina to Nicaragua where she participated in the Sandinista Revolution. Their inspiring stories represent the variety of experiences that women everywhere are faced with as they struggle for self-respect and survival. Produced in 2005 by the Argentine collective.

Official Website: http://www.alavio.org