(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Americans have a long tradition of political protest marches, and with the inclusion of Trump in the presidency, it has not exactly become less to protest against. Working in protest is a documentary in 15 chapters, consisting of observational footage filmmakers from the company Rumur made of various demonstrations and street protests in the United States. Recordings extend over a period of thirty years, albeit mainly from the turn of the millennium.
Portrait of activism. The first chapter shows people who have taken to the streets to show their disgust at a planned Ku Klux Klan march in North Carolina 3. December 2016 – which in turn should celebrate Trump's victory in the presidential election a month earlier. The worrying situation is perhaps best summed up by one of those attending: “I never thought I would live in a world where the Ku Klux Klan is so connected to the political process. That's why I just have to do something. ”After moving to the ever-changing site where the clan announces on Twitter that they are going to march, protesters manage to prevent the racist Trump flag from being carried out.
Filmmakers continue to film and publish protests on their website, and the documentary is thus a work in progress.
Not all the street protests portrayed in Working in Protest, end just as triumphant. After that, the film jumps back to 1987, when another KKK march took place in director Michael Galinsky's hometown of Chapel Hill (also in North Carolina) the day after he finished high school. This is evidenced by a series of black and white still images taken by Galinsky himself, accompanied by audio recordings from a local student radio station. Here you get the impression that the police are most concerned with keeping away the attentive KKK opponents and protecting the marching, hooded racists.
Each of the film's chapters are in a way individual short films, and several of these can be found on the production company's website rumur.com. Put together for an all-night documentary, however, they paint a bigger picture, and a kind of portrait of modern activism in the United States. Other protests in the film include Occupy Wall Street and its marking a year later, the formal inauguration of the aforementioned Trump, and a sequence in which a posted reporter randomly asks on the streets of New York what they think of the war in Iraq, which then has been going on for a year (many are positive, some more skeptical; the most clearly expressed opposition comes from two children).
In process. The fact that most of the celebrations in the film take place in New York and North Carolina is simply due to the fact that the filmmakers have filmed such events where they have lived through these years. This helps to do Working in protest to a personal film, despite the fact that the filmmakers themselves do not appear in front of the camera. The title of the film refers to the fact that Rumur continues to film such events and publish them on his website, and that the documentary is thus a work in constant development. But the title probably plays so much that the protests are also an ongoing process. Some of the protesters appear in several of the chapters – which testifies that they work over time to protest and create change.
When the film had its European premiere at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival in March, director Galinsky explained that he and co-filmmaker Suki Hawley prefer to film what happens on the periphery of the demonstrations themselves. "During Trump's inauguration, there were several people who set fire to limousines and the like, but we wanted to be with the people who sold T-shirts. This is where the most interesting conversations take place, "said Galinsky. Sometimes these T-shirts say enough in themselves, as when they wear the unpalatable (pro-Trump, if there is any doubt) imprint "Hillary sucks – but not like Monica".
Depictions of violence can quickly become meaningless "protest porn", says director Galinsky.
The focus on – literally – the extremes of the demonstrations has done Working in Protestt to a slightly different film about this type of protest, which gives an interesting insight into the different personalities who participate in them. An uplifting scene in this way shows an aggressive mouth-to-mouth between people with opposite views of the recent president, who slips into a surprisingly respectful exchange of opinions.
Little depictions of violence. It seems obvious that several of the protests meet rather brutal opposition from the police. Still does not contain Working in protest many direct depictions of outbursts of violence, neither from the police nor from others. The director said that they had some material depicting brutality, but that this could result in what he calls "protest porn" if it had been included in the documentary. "It can quickly become meaningless. The depictions of violence become acts without context, which only revolt. And in a way, people stop thinking when they get angry, "Galinsky told audiences in Thessaloniki, emphasizing that the filmmakers' goal was only to observe.
This does not mean, however, that the film is completely objective to what it depicts, even though it does not contain any narrator's voice or similar grip that conveys concrete messages from the filmmakers. Nor that it tries to hide the brutality that obviously takes place in several of these demonstrations. For example, the irony is palpable when the camera dwells on the core values written on the side of a New York police car – "courtesy, professionalism, respect" – in a sequence that shows crowds of heavily armed and neither very polite nor respectful police meeting those who want mark the one-year anniversary of the Occupy movement.
If not all the protests in the film lead to success, you are still left with an optimistic feeling after watching Working in protest. For the real horror scenario is, of course, when actors like the Ku Klux Klan – or for that matter Donald Trump – meet with indifference.
See link to short films the filmmakers have also made:
http://rumur.com/about-those-statues/
