Battersea Power Station – New Mini Documentary on-line

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BPS overview

A  mini-documentary exploring the ongoing Battersea Power Station battle is now live and on-line…  featuring powerful testimony from community group members,  politicians and  social representatives, this mini film touches upon the issues, thoughts and emotions surrounding the station and its precarious future.

Watch it here:  Battersea Power Station – The Story so far

Visit Spectacle’s on-going Battersea Power Station Project

Subscribe to our newsletter mailing list, visit our contact page to subscribe

If you live in the neighbourhood and would like to get involved, contact us here putting Battersea Power Station in your message.

Click here for more Battersea Power Station links

Spectacle Home Page

Class X Discuss Black History

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Class X

The clips from the Class X project that once featured on the Channel 4 website as The Unteachables is now accessible on Spectacle’s homepage.

The clips were made for Channel Four Online in connection with the TV series ‘The Unteachables’. The idea was to contribute to the debate on education from the point of view of school kids.

To commemorate Black History Month, we would like to promote the clip ‘Diversity in History’.

Despite the Sun – Video Art, England’s Avant Garde, interview

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Despite TV’s film “Despite the Sun” has been featured in an interview with writer and academic Sean Cubitt. The interview is about the early days of video in the UK.

Sean Cubitt is currently Professor of Media and Communications, University of Melbourne and has written widely on the media arts.

“that’s I think one of the most gripping pieces of political documentary to be made in this country in the last 50 years, it’s a phenomenal piece of work.”
“they all went scooting round through people’s houses and so on to get stories that the national media weren’t getting, and it’s a fabulous piece of work”
“So it was very important aesthetically as well as in terms of its politics.”

you can watch Despite the Sun here: Despite the Sun

full article can be found here: Video Art article

Exodus – Levellers Concert – 1999

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Levellers perform Exodus live – Exodus benefit Concert at Stopsley Recreation Centre, Luton, 1999. Watch video…

The Luton based Exodus Collective came into existence in 1992 as part of the growing DIY culture which arose in response to unemployment, poverty and frustration amongst young people. They offer working, viable solutions to many of society’s stated ills, poverty, crime, drugs, unemployment and the break down of community. Exodus blend a volatile mixture of rastafarianism, new-age punk and street smart politics. ‘We are not drop outs but force outs.’

Levellers - Exodus

Spectacle also produced the music video Cracklife, in collaboration with Marsh Farm Community members about the effects of Crack on their lives and community, Exodus Movement Of Jah People, a documentary that was shown on Channel 4, and in an extended version on ARTE (available in Italian and German and with French subtitles), as well as Exodus from Babylon (Channel 4), and documented the journey from Luton to Zurich as the Exodus movement take their raves to Switzerland (SF – Swiss TV).

Planning Alerts face Royal Mail legal action

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Planning Alerts a web-based service that sends you e-mails to alert you of any planning applications granted near to where you live, have recently been threatened with legal action by Royal Mail unless they pay a £4000 yearly fee to access the postcode database.

There are several forms of action that can be taken towards this:

Write to your MP:

Tom Watson MP has tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling on
the Royal Mail to allow non-profit organisations to use the postcode
database for free. Please write to your MP asking them to sign this
Early Day Motion (number EDM 2000) and protest at the actions of The
Royal Mail.

You can write to your MP here

Sign the petition:

There is a petition up on the Number 10 website regarding this situation:

Sign the petition here

London 2012 Olympics Logo – Battersea Power Station

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Battersea Power Station Community Group urge you to take the chance to nominate Battersea Power Station landmark to be used as the design on a set of commemorative pin badges. We here at Spectacle thought about just how great an opportunity this is to raise awareness about Battersea Power Station and the current state it’s in.

You are able to submit one vote on the landmark of your choice, and so this is a very good chance to kick-start some action dealing with the Battersea Power Station problems!

The website can be found here

Visit Spectacle’s on-going Battersea Power Station Project

Watch a video trailer here: Battersea Power Station – The Story So Far

Subscribe to our newsletter mailing list, visit our contact page to subscribe

If you live in the neighbourhood and would like to get involved, contact us here putting Battersea Power Station in your message.

Click here for more Battersea Power Station links

Spectacle Home Page

Launch Screening – Outside The Law: Stories From Guantánamo

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Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo
(Spectacle Productions, 2009; 74 mins., directed by Polly Nash, with Andy Worthington)

The Film is being launched at the Cochrane Theatre in London on Wednesday 21st October in association with Cageprisoners and the Guantanamo Justice Centre. Ticket are free but should be booked in advance via www.cochranetheatre.co.uk or 020 7269 1606

Doors open 6pm, film starts 7pm, Q&A 8.30pm

“Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” is a new documentary film telling the story of Guantánamo (and including sections on extraordinary rendition and secret prisons) with a particular focus on how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws, how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments), and why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism (as missionaries or humanitarian aid workers, for example).

Focusing on the stories of three particular prisoners — Shaker Aamer (who is still held), Binyam Mohamed (who was released in February 2009) and Omar Deghayes (who was released in December 2007)  — “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” provides a powerful rebuke to those who believe that Guantánamo holds “the worst of the worst” and that the Bush administration was justified in responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by holding men neither as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as criminal suspects with habeas corpus rights, but as “illegal enemy combatants” with no rights whatsoever.

The film contains interviews with former prisoners (Moazzam Begg and, in his first major interview, Omar Deghayes) lawyers for the prisoners (Clive Stafford Smith in the UK and Tom Wilner in the US), and journalist and author Andy Worthington, and also includes appearances from Guantánamo’s former Muslim chaplain James Yee, a London-based Imam, and the British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce.

For more information visit Spectacle Projects

Polly Nash is a lecturer at the London College Of Communications, part of the University of the Arts, London, and has worked in film and TV for 20 years.

Andy Worthington is a journalist and blogger, and the author of three books, including The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (Pluto Press). His website is: www.andyworthington.co.uk

British Airways launches luxury service to New York

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Airways was accused of hypocrisy as the airline prepared to launch a luxury all-business service between London and New York, with just 32 seats on an aircraft normally fitted for 100 people, days after chief executive Willie Walsh pledged a drastic cut in emissions.

The twice daily service on customised Airbus A318s features flat beds and latest technology allowing passengers to send emails and text and use the internet while on board.

Flights leaving from London though will be forced to make a brief refueling stop at Shannon airport in the west of Ireland because City airport’s runway is too short to handle an A318 aircraft with a full fuel load.

Greenpeace aviation campaigner, Vicky Wyatt, said the service was “[…] Willie Walsh announced that the industry is committed to playing its part in the fight against climate change. But it is blindingly obvious that the aviation industry doesn’t intend to cut emissions at all. Rather airlines, like BA, want to pay other countries and sectors to make those cuts so that the industry can carry on with business as usual.”

Friends of the Earth campaigner Richard Dyer said the spacious layout of the aircraft meant that each passenger is responsible for around three times the emissions from regular flights.

Walsh appeared before the United Nations forum on climate change in New York last week, to unveil an agreement between airlines, airports and aircraft companies to cut emissions to 50% below 2005 levels by 2050. The plan was viewed as a bid to seize the initiative on the issue, to ensure that the industry would not be ambushed with more punishing strictures at the global warming summit in Copenhagen in December. Aviation accounts for 1.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions currently, but that figure is set to grow significantly if left unchecked

BA will be under pressure to show investors that the premium airline can be a success.

Full Article : BA Luxury service

World Cup effect on South africa

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Mnikelo talking

Mnikelo talking

In may 2004, South Africa became the first African nation to be nominated to host a football World Cup. Following that announcement, South African’s were overwhelmed by the prospect of much needed development and new business opportunities.

Since then, a lot (mainly the poorest) have been evicted or resettled  as the government try to show a “clean” image of South Africa to the world.

Spectacle has recently uploaded and interview with Mnikelo and Zodwa from Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African shackdwellers’ movement, talking about the negative effects of the 2010 World Cup on South Africans. This can be viewed on the Spectacle archive page (World Cup, South Africa) and was filmed in connection with the London Olympics 2012 and the recurring effect of mega sporting event.

Mnikelo’s interview gives an insight into the World Cup backstage and its effect on the host nation.