Subversive Festival on the Map of European Mobilization
Zagreb, April 5th – Although the accession of Croatia to the European Union is a political act with numerous consequences, there was no serious discussion about the accession neither before the referendum nor afterwards. Within the last few months, new austerity measures and structural adjustments, changes to labor laws and privatizations were the cause of mass protests on the streets of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Romania and Hungary. European Union’s internal turmoil as well as the economic, financial, social and ideological crisis of the European project are the topics of this year’s 5th Subversive Forum. Through a critical examination of Europe’s current crisis, the Subversive Forum will try to outline realistic possibilities for its transformation and the creation of another political, social and economic project across the Old Continent. The 5th Subversive Festival will be held in Zagreb from May 5th to May 19th, 2012.
The first week of the festival (May 5th – May 12th) is traditionally dedicated to the film part of the program and takes place in cinemas Europe and Tuškanac. Under the umbrella theme of “Europe Incognita”, in a couple of sections a wide range of social issues immersed in a European context will be presented and will also provide insights into contemporary European filmmaking. We learn about the new trends in European film through themes of migration, women’s rebellion, the G8 riots, unrest on the shores of the Mediterranean (Portugal, Spain, Greece), video surveillance, neo-Nazism and xenophobia … Theoretical film workshop will address the role of European films and film festivals in the distribution of the nonmainstream cinema. An important guest of the film-theoretical workshop is Dina Iordanova, an expert for the World movie, whose work has been focused mostly on Balkan cinema, Eastern Europe and Europe in general.
Conference of the festival, “The Future of Europe” will be held from May 13th to May 19th in the cinema Europe. Except for regular guests such as Slavoj Zizek, Tariq Ali, Gayatri Spivak, and Samir Amin, the leading intellectuals of our time such as Stéphane Hesse, Michael Hardt, Saskia Sassen, Renate Salecl, Christian Marazzi, Bernard Cassen, Eric Toussaint, etc have confirmed their arrival. Beside the main lectures as part of the conference, a special novelty for this year’s Subversive Festival is Subversive Forum – a platform for social mobilizations across Europe and the Balkans. Subversive Forum has several thematic blocks: “The Crisis of Europe” (May 14th to 15th), “The struggle for the commons” (May 16th) and “Towards the Balkan Social Forum” (May 17th to 18th). Subversive Forum will be held in ZKM Theater at noon, and we expect participation of more than a hundred representatives of social movements, trade unions and activists from around the world.
Although European protests have not yet managed to reverse the balance of power and stop the neoliberal turn that rapidly destroys the legacy of the welfare state and radically changes the European Union project, so showing the need for the united struggle that will involve all social forces, from unions to academics and political representatives. Last March in Bruxelles an important summit — Joint Social Conference – attended by more than 40 organizations, trade unions, NGOs and social movements from 20 European countries was held. The summit adopted a political declaration and an elaborated and detailed plan of action. Subversive Forum was listed as one of important events in 2012, together with other main social mobilizations across Europe such as the occupation of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt and new actions and rallies in Greece, Spain and Italy.
Please find the detailed programmes of the workshops for download on the right.
The registration and participation information will be announced soon.