The film by Johanna Schellhagen encourages and could stimulate discussions. ----
"Hello, I'm Johanna, I've been filming strikes and social movements for 20 yearsand I was very late in realizing what a catastrophe climate change is". DirectorJohanna Schellhagen begins her latest film "The Loud Spring" with this personalstatement. ---- Schellhagen is the founder of the platform labournet.tv., onwhich numerous social movements and class struggles are documented. In 2015,Schellhagen publicized a series of labor disputes in the northern Italianlogistics industry with her film "The Fear Thrown Away". ---- Now she wants toshare the experiences she has gained in recent years with the climate movement.The first part of her film contains video excerpts about the actions of theclimate movement.It is positive that the film keeps looking at the global South, whereinternational capital uses particularly harsh methods against all protests.Argentinian anti-fracking activist Servat explains why even left-wing governmentscannot exit fossil-fuel capitalism that easily. They would be overthrownimmediately, according to his prognosis. In fact, there is another aspect. Thesocial reforms that left-wing governments under Chavez in Venezuela, for example,pushed through, could often only be financed with the money that was generatedfrom the export of fossil fuels such as oil. Basically, this means that it is theintegration of almost all states in the capitalist world economy that makes anexit from fossil capitalism so difficult.WHEN WORKERS AND CLIMATE ACTIVISTS ACT TOGETHERSchellhagen focuses the film on the question of what role workers can play in thefight against the climate crisis. The film is also a response to a bourgeoiscurrent in the climate movement, which, like Tadzio Müller, former environmentalofficer at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, asks why workers can contribute more tosolving the climate crisis than Beatles fans, for example. Schellhagen's film isa more than 60-minute response to this position, which is not uncommon in themiddle-class climate movement.The climate movement must find the forces of change, says Schellhagen, drawingattention to the international struggles of workers that are often not evennoticed in this country. Here the director can fall back on her long contactswith militant wage earners in different countries. She lets activists of theItalian base union S.I. Cobas as well as the militant Amazon employee MagdaMalinowski from Poznan. "Labour is central and crucial to the capitalist systemof production. If we organize ourselves at work, we can change the whole system,"she points out. The film makes it clear that workers have the power to changetheir conditions and society. In an optimistic future scenario, the climate andlabor movements fight together against destructive capitalism. There are bigstrikes, only the workers in the food and care industries continue to workbecause they are responsible for essential goods or services. It shows theestablishment of councils, the occupation of radio and television stations andthe establishment of public canteen kitchens that are supposed to provide food.As part of the uprising, factories are occupied, climate and company activistsget to know each other. On the fourth day of departure, the police and militaryattempt to evacuate. Activists use the radio to call for support for theworker-occupied and self-governing VW plants in Wolfsburg, which have longstopped producing cars.After about 20 minutes, the film returns to reality in 2022, where many climateactivists realize that the small steps out of the climate crisis are an illusion.You talk about the system change. The film is encouraging, precisely because theanimated scenes from the future seem so improbable today, but are perhaps theonly way to prevent the catastrophe. Silent Spring was the name of a book bybiologist Rachel Carson that she published 60 years ago shortly before heruntimely death and which became a classic in the global environmental movement.The title alludes to the lack of singing birds and the chirping of insects thathave disappeared due to climate change. Johanna Schellhagen took up the title andturned it into something positive. In her film, it is the protest cries of thepeople who are defending themselves against the destructive politics all over theworld that turn the silent spring into a loud one. It is hoped that the film willspark discussion and perhaps even help bring corporate and climate strugglestogether. A small point of criticism should be mentioned: I missed somereferences to struggles where this has already happened in recent years, forexample the fight against the closure of a shrubbery in Munich or the industrialdispute in local public transport in 2020.The Loud Spring. Together out of the climate crisis, Johanna Schellhagen, Germany2022, 62min, labournet.tvThe film will premiere on August 2nd, 2022 at the Tonio cinema inBerlin-Weissensee. After that it runs from 4.-10. August at the Lichtblickcinema. Further Europe-wide performance dates can be found here.Featured image from labournet.tvhttps://direkteaktion.org/warum-arbeiterinnen-mehr-zur-loesung-der-klimakrise-beitragen-koennen-als-beatles-fans/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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