LosAngeles Filmforum presents
Speculation Nation, on August 7
LOS ANGELES, July 23, 2016 - Real estate speculators destroyed the Spanish economy, and now ordinary citizens occupy empty buildings and speculate on new ways to live.
The global financial crisis that began in 2007 battered Spain. Over a quarter of the population lost their jobs, and hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes. The constitutional guarantee for housing that has been a cornerstone of Spain following the death of Francisco Franco has been shaken by a combination of greedy real estate speculators, predatory banks, corrupt public officials, and a global financial catastrophe.
In this impressionistic documentary film, Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown travel across Spain to explore the consequences of the housing crisis. What they find are Spanish citizens, inspired by the politics of The 15M Movement and Occupy Wall Street, who are mobilizing, collectivizing, and fighting for the right for a decent place to live. Along the way, the filmmakers visit young mothers and their families squatting in failed condodevelopments; intentional communities of mountain cave dwellers; protest campsites that have sprung up in front of bank branches; and empty apartment buildings transformed into experiments in utopian living. The film examines the ideologies that separate housing from home, and real estate speculation from speculations about a better way to live.
What: Speculation Nation
Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown in person! Los Angeles premiere!
When: Sunday August 7, 2016, 7:30 pm.
Where: At the Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90028
Tickets: $10 general; $6 students/seniors; free for Filmforum members.
Available in advance from Brown Paper Tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2584656 or at the door.
For more information: www.lafilmforum.org or 323-377-7238
Screening:
Speculation Nation
by Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown
2014, United States/Spain, HD, 74min.
"...a lucid snapshot of Spain's pre-bubble real estate speculation and the current squatters taking advantage of it." -Anthony Kaufman, Indiewire
"Speculation Nation is interested in rendering political crisis not only as a wasteland but also acatalyst for social action. In depicting protest camps, demonstrations and the occupation of unused apartments and the caves overlooking Granada, the film's title picks up a secondary meaning inflected by the determination of ordinary citizens to think outside the box." -Max Goldberg, Fandor
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Bill Brown is a writer and filmmaker living in North Carolina where he is a lecturing fellow in the Arts of the Moving Image Program at Duke University. He received a BA from Harvard University and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. In his work, Bill is interested in landscapes as markers of our memories, dreams, and desires.
Bill's films have screened at venues around the world, including the Viennale, the Rotterdam Film Festival, the London Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, and Lincoln Center. Aretrospective of his films was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is a recipient of a Creative Capital Grant and a Rockefeller Fellowship.
Sabine Gruffat is a digital media artist and filmmaker living and working in North Carolina. Currently she is Assistant Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.
Sabine's films and videos have screened at festivals worldwide including the Image Forum Festival in Japan, The Ann Arbor Film Festival and Migrating Forms in New York. Her feature film I Have Always Been A Dreamer has screened internationally including at the Viennale, MoMA Documentary Fortnight, Cinéma du Réel at the Centre Pompidou, and The Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.
She has also produced digital media works for public spaces as well as interactive installations that have been shown at the Zolla Lieberman Gallery in Chicago, Art In General, Devotion Gallery, PS1 Contemporary Art Museum, and Hudson Franklin in New York.
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This program is supported by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; and Bloomberg Philanthropies. We also depend on our members, ticket buyers, and individual donors.
Los Angeles Filmforum is the city's longest-running organization dedicated to weekly screenings of experimental film, documentaries, video art, and experimental animation. 2016 is our 41st year.
Memberships available, $70 single, $115 dual, or $50 single student