PUSHBACK Talks
Landlords without faces, apartments without tenants. In 2019, filmmaker Fredrik Gertten released Push, an award-winning documentary that explores the unaffordable, unlivable city, and the growing global housing crisis. Following the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha, the film sought to understand why cities around the world are becoming increasingly expensive.
In June of 2020, Fredrik and Leilani teamed up again to continue the conversation they began with the film, and PUSHBACK Talks was born. Since then, PUSHBACK Talks has grown into an exploration of the social, political, and economic forces that shape our world, and of the actions people are taking to push back against inequality, corruption, authoritarian systems, poverty, war, and the shift towards far-right conservatism.
Join the Filmmaker (Gertten) and the Advocate (Farha) as they dissect these topics, uncover the connections between them, and search for solutions. How can we, as individuals, movements, and communities, fight back – push back – to build societies where every human being has the right to live equally, freely, and with dignity?
Listen to PUSHBACK Talks and join the conversation for a better, fairer world.
For more about PUSH and to view it: www.pushthefilm.com
For more about Leilani Farha and her organization, The Shift: www.make-the-shift.org
For more about Fredrik Gertten and his other films: www.wgfilm.com
If you are interested in watching his newest documentary: www.breakingsocialfilm.com
PUSHBACK Talks
Extreme Vengeance Against the Poor
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In cities of all sizes across North America, legislation and policy are enacting violence on poor people. From housing policies that will see tens of thousands more people become homeless due to unaffordability to an ordinance in Los Angeles that makes it nearly impossible for the unhoused to find a place to rest, criminalization of homeless people is being dressed up as solutions
Fredrik and Leilani are joined by Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare, and Geography at UCLA, Ananya Roy, and Dan Oudshoorn of #TheForgotten519 to unpack the root causes of the extreme cruelty being levvied against the most vulnerable, and discuss how legislation is making it easier to cage and control people already suffering under the most dire circumstances. Why, when there's more money available to address housing and homelessness than ever before, does the death toll continue to climb and mass evictions loom on the horizon?