GREECE: 'Our Present Is Your Future" DVD and UK Tour

Our 2 hour special on Greece is being printed up now. Copies will be mailed out on Saturday 2nd June – to make sure of your copy, order here.

Our UK tour starts on June 22nd – come and see the front line of the social war that’s engulfing Europe, and join in the discussions on how to deliver practical solidarity and build a Europe wide movement against austerity.

We are very pleased to announce that Georgia Mylonaki, Eleftherotypia striker will be joining the tour up to July 2nd. Eleftherotypia is a national newspaper where the workers have been on all out strike now for 5 months – one of the longest strikes ever in Greece.

If we’re not coming to your area and you want to arrange a screening, please get in touch. In particular, it would be nice to do events in Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and Edinburgh.

Tour Dates:

Friday June 22nd 7pm HACKNEY Halkevi Centre 31 – 33 Dalston Lane, London E8 3DF  (with Hackney Trades Council; part of Turkish Kurdish International Labor Film Festival)

Wednesday June 27th LANCASTER time and venue tbc

Thursday June 28th 6pm GLASGOW  The Albany Learning and      Conference Centre, 44 Ashley Street G3 6DS (with Camcorder Guerillas and Woodlands Community Garden)

Also Thursday June 28th: 7:30pm HARINGEY Chestnut Community & Community Arts Centre, 280 St. Ann’s Road, N15 5BN (with UNISON North London Mental Health & Community branch)

Friday June 29th 6:30pm BRIGHTON The Cowley Club 12 London Road BN1 4JA (with live bands from Spain)

Tuesday July 3rd BRISTOL time and venue tbc

Thursday July 12th BRIDPORT 7:30pm (day before Tolpuddle festival starts) St John’s ambulance hall, Rax Lane DT6 3JJ (with Autonomy Films)

Friday July 20th – Sunday July 22nd GLOBALISE RESISTANCE FESTIVAL Tapeley Park, Devon

Wednesday July 25th NEWCASTLE 7:30pm The Star and Shadow cinema, Stepney Bank (opp. Tanners Pub)

Greece Films released online from Friday Here's something we'd like some feedback on. Seeing as Greece has been turned into a big neoliberal experiment to test how far workers wages and conditions can be destroyed before applying it to the rest of us in Europe, we're going to try a little experiment of our own. We know that in the run up to the Greek elections and beyond, the mainstream media will be full of lies in order to justify this experiment. So we are going to try and redress the balance a bit by releasing all the films we've made online, one a week at the same time for the next 6 weeks. Maybe we can't compete with the likes of bbc and sky, but maybe we can build up an audience that will go out and do something with the information… So at the moment we're thinking every Friday at Midday, (2pm Greece time) starting this Friday June 1. What do you all think out there? Comments please! And please tell us which film you'd like to see first.

By the way, if you've been meaning to fill out that standing order form and post it back to us but haven't got round to it, we've just made it a lot easier for you. You can now take out a standing order on Paypal. It'll take you less than a minute, just click here. We rely for our funding on DVD sales, subscriptions and donations. This allows us to maintain our independence and reflect the concerns of the ordinary worker. Although we are growing steadily, we still struggle to meet running costs, and can’t afford to pay ourselves more than expenses as yet. So as well as the basic £3 per month subscription, you'll find options to pay more every month if you can afford to, up to £20 per month.  

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If you haven't heard about us before:   Reel News is an activist video collective that has been in existence since 2006. It was set up to publicise and share information on inspirational campaigns and struggles – not just in this country, but across the world.   We: 1)    Produce a bi-monthly 100-minute newsreel, made up of a number of films short enough to use in union and campaign meetings. 2)    Post videos and slideshows of current struggles online every week at our website, reelnews.co.uk 3)    Organise screenings around the country with the aim of bringing people together to discuss collectively the issues raised in the films, and then hopefully agree on some form of action.   Reel News has made films covering and publicising a number of campaigns and strikes over the past five years. We were the only people to film the historic victory by electricians recently, as they stopped Balfour Beatty and 7 other major companies cutting their wages by 35% and tearing up national agreements. We worked with the rank and file sparks committee to produce constant video updates to spread the action and get information out.   We’ve made films on the pensions dispute, the fight to save the NHS, the student struggles of 2010, struggles against the cuts, factory occupations including Visteon and Vestas, the campaign against the blacklist and strikes across the public sector, as well as international trade union struggles, environmental struggles, Palestine solidarity, anti-war campaigns and community campaigns. To see the films visit the website at reelnews.co.uk.   We can be commissioned to make campaign films, or to teach people the skills they need to make short films themselves. Price is negotiable – down to nothing if your branch is penniless or on strike!