May Day Special 2020
In recent years, we've been bitterly telling ourselves that work was continually declining in society's regard. Today, anyone who has food delivered to their home, or any other basic necessity, understands the value of the work of that young man or woman who leaves their delivery outside their door. But in the current climate, it seems there's still more concern about whether or not the football championship will resume than whether or not schools will reopen. So, we, who in the May Day ritual have always favored the compact mass of blue-collar workers, this time want our ideal procession with red flags, front and center, to include the doctors and nurses fighting the virus, the teachers who have not abandoned our children, the farmers who helplessly endure the scourge of climate change, and all those who provide us with essential goods and services. We want this against a society that has grown on superfluity, on entertainment. And we want to look forward, because the new path that leads to a shift in values must necessarily begin with a gesture of indignation, a revolt, of that work that is perhaps now the most despised of all in the so-called knowledge economy: intellectual, creative, artistic work—now so close to care work because it protects what is within us, so indispensable to innovation and therefore to change. Then, yes, we can say: workers of the world unite!
Sergio Bologna for May Day 2020
We open our celebrations for May 1st 2020 with this first contribution, a text sent to us for the occasion by Sergio Bologna, one of the curators and editors of May Day Workshop, a magazine project that also uses new media as a tool for building an up-to-date debate on the issues of work, workers, and social conflict.
Here the Manifesto magazine presentation:
Here the Contents of the first issue, coming out soon:
We therefore welcome a short video presenting this still unpublished magazine, which constitutes the second contribution to our Special May Day 2020.
- To commemorate the workers' achievements, we are making available for free viewing an exceptional document/documentary of Peter Perotti e Pier Milanese on the workers' struggles in the Fiat Mirafiori plants of the 70s, at the time the largest factory in Europe.
- Peter Perotti For this May 1st 2020, he offers us a further contribution.
Co-author and protagonist of Without asking permission, in which he included unique super 8 footage he secretly shot inside the Fiat Mirafiori plant in the 70s, Pietro Perotti also created giant masks and puppets, initially in papier-mâché and cardboard, and later, after meeting and collaborating with Pietro Gilardi, a well-known exponent of the Turin avant-garde and a politicized artist, in foam rubber, used in hundreds of workers' demonstrations.
In this short, previously unreleased film, shot recently, he shows us images of every May Day parade in Turin from 1976 until last year, in which he participated with his puppets, along with Piero Gilardi and others. This is a unique Turin working-class tradition, thanks to a worker who doesn't want to be called an artist and who honors the class to which he never ceased to belong, thanks to his human and political sensitivity.
- Through Global Rights - Global Rights We host some contributions from the 15th edition of theİşçi Filmleri Festivali, the Labor Film Festival held in Istanbul. Here's the link to their presentation clip:
The festival coordinator Önder Özdemir he wrote in his presentation:
The world and our country are going through a very unusual time. As is often said, 'nothing will ever be the same again.' The COVID-19 epidemic has spread across the world, and governments' strategy is summed up in the motto 'stay home.' But we know that the devastation of the healthcare system has a lot to do with the speed of the epidemic's spread.
Those who can stay at home have done so...
And those who can't stay home... What do they do? Who are they?
Nurses, doctors, healthcare workers, laboratory workers... all employees of the healthcare sector.
But also municipal employees, market workers, call center workers, factory workers who continue production, and seasonal agricultural workers. They all continue to work.
Our festival wants to showcase those workers and those who cannot stay at home."
Like many festivals, this one will also take place online.
To watch a film, you will need to connect at the time indicated in the programme http://iff.org.tr/arsiv/program_2020.pdf
The Festival channel is this:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNrrRyknHWUfzLxhEplOULQ
- İşçi Filmleri Festivali participates with a further contribution, thanks to the award-winning director-producer Adem Akyol which provides us with this animated short film, in competition: CuckooEvery freedom has a price.