The Museum of Design Atlanta and Frequent Small
Meals present
Peaceably to Assemble: Protest in Film and Video, 1961-2009
An evening of rare films and footage of historic protest actions, culled from
archives and personal collections, presented in conjunction with the exhibition
The Graphic Imperative
still from Dan Drasin's Sunday (1961)
courtesy Dan Drasin
Film and video makers have played an important role in international protest movements,
by documenting acts of resistance and sometimes becoming an integral part of the
protests themselves. This month's events in Iran, revealed to the world
incrementally as anonymously made cellphone videos posted to sites like Youtube,
have reminded us all over again of the crucial impact of the moving image in
protest movements. In conjunction with the Museum of Design Atlanta’s exhibition The Graphic
Imperative, Film Love presents an evening of rare films and videos on
historic protest actions. Most of the selections come from private collections
or archives, and are not available on commercial video.
Filmed from Atlanta to Prague to Tehran, and New York City’s Washington Square Park to
Singapore’s Speaker’s Corner, these documents of protest were made by
photographers, activists, DIY videomakers – and sometimes the police. The
subjects of the protests range from AIDS and Communist repression to freedom of
speech and the Vietnam War, yet within these powerful documents of
life-and-death issues, agitation and occasional brutality, are glimpses of
humanity and even humor.
Dan Drasin’s recently restored 1961 film Sunday documents New York City’s
ban on music in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park. The unexpectedly
rough clash between a group of folksingers and the police, captured on the fly
by the teenaged filmmaker, was a harbinger of the decade’s subsequent turmoil.
Over 800,000 Czech citizens defied authorities to attend the January 1969
funeral of Jan Palach, a student who set himself on fire to protest the
Soviet invasion of the country. A powerful portrait of individual and communal grief made by a prominent
figure of the Czech New Wave, Jan 69 records the funeral procession in
Prague.
Both formally daring and emotionally moving, James Wentzy’s The Ashes Action
is a neglected masterpiece of the prolific AIDS activist video movement. It
documents a typically controversial ACT UP protest in which marchers outflanked
police and reached the White House lawn, where they scattered the ashes of loved
ones who had died of AIDS. Made in 1990 Atlanta as a side project during a major
ACT UP protest, Marta: Portrait of a Teen Activist is a comedic video
about an overachieving, politically correct activist – a rare example of a
satire on protesters produced from within the movement. Marta is
accompanied by VHS footage made at the same ACT UP action at the Centers for
Disease Control in Atlanta.
Featuring a handful of unarmed protesters against a mountain of police, Martyn See’s
Speakers Cornered shows the almost farcical lengths to which authorities
went to prevent a seven-person march in 2006 Singapore. The police can neither
arrest the protesters, nor let them proceed, creating a stalemate. The resulting
images of protesters surrounded by a human wall of police and unable to move are
a classic glimpse into the politics of the absurd. Circulated worldwide via Youtube long before it could be screened in its country of origin, Speakers
Cornered is an example of twenty-first century tactics in protest and media.
PROGRAM: Selected videos of protest actions in Iran
(Anonymous videomakers, Iran, 2009) Sunday (Dan Drasin, U.S., 1961) 20 minutes Jan 69
(Stanislav Milota, Czechoslavakia, 1969) 7 minutes screened courtesy Narodni
Filmovy Archiv, the Czech Republic The Ashes Action (James Wentzy, U.S., 1995) 30
minutes ACT UP Atlanta CDC Action footage
(excerpts) (Anonymous, U.S., 1990) footage courtesy Jeff Graham Marta: Portrait of a Teen Activist (Matt
Ebert and Ryan Landry, U.S., 1990) 10 minutes Speakers Cornered (Martyn See, Singapore, 2006) 28
minutes screened courtesy the Asian Film Archive
Program subject to change
