Having attended over 120 screenings in America, Mexico, Canada, Australia and Japan, Franklin López will continue his world tour in the Europe this April his film END:CIV.

END:CIV illustrates the brutality of a civilization addicted to  systematic violence and environmental destruction, and the heroism of those who confront it head-on.

Through rapid-fire video-game graphics, interviews, war footage and satire END:CIV mocks the excesses of the global economic system, and examines the necessity for effective resistance.

As Europe is beginning to experience more frequent environmental crises resulting from climate change and a history of poor environmental management this film will be instrumental in bringing awareness of the need to confront the system which allows this destruction to continue.

After the screening Franklin will answer questions relating to the film and ask those present to consider what action they are prepared to take to save the landbase they rely on to survive.

An award-winning filmmaker, Franklin López hails from San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is the founder of subMedia.tv a subversive video website that features anarchist films, mash-ups and his show “It’s the End of the World as we know it and I feel fine”

“By far, the most routinely-praised contemporary media activist is Franklin López. His shows and films not only possess a distinctive look and feel, but they also contain a wicked sense of humor …  López’s work engages in constructing a new vision where popular culture serves the interests of the poor and dispossessed, where humor is reignited within activism, and the D.I.Y. ethics of punk and hip-hop allow those with talent and gumption to be the media, once again.” – Chris Robé, Pop Matters

Proposed Dates:

• London April 3,4,6,7
• Heathrow (Booked)
• Cambridge April 8-9
• Oxford April 10-11
• Bristol – (Booked)
• Hereford April 14-15
• NewCastle (Booked)
• Edinburgh April 19-21
• Glasgow April 22-25
• St. Andrews April 25 – 27
• Paris May 2,3,6,7
• Zaandam (Booked)
• Amsterdam May 12-13
• Hamburg May 15-17
• Copenhagen May 18-20
• Berlin May 22-26
• Czech Republic – May 27-30
• Budapest – May 31- June 2
• Athens June 2-15
• Barcelona – June 16-30

I’ve been in Australia now for a little bit over a month touring with my film END:CIV, and my brain is full. I’ve learned so much in my short amount of time here, that it goes to show how lived experience can pack in more education than books ever will.

On my second week here, I took part in the 40th celebration of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, the capital of Australia. The short story is that four aboriginal activists set up an beach umbrella in front of the parliament building, to protest the government’s refusal to acknowledge aboriginal sovereignty. Forty years later, and the embassy (which is now a small structure) and the sacred fire are still there. The anniversary celebration was timed to coincide with “Australia Day” or more appropriately “Invasion Day”  or the day Captain Cook arrived in the land down under and unleashed the 200 year plus wave of violence against aboriginal people and the natural environment here. You see, the British didn’t consider the aborigines to be people, they considered them part of the fauna and declared Australia “Terra Nullius” or empty land. You can watch an interview I did with aboriginal activist Robbie Thorpe speaking about the embassy here.

According to some scientists, aboriginal people have been inhabiting the Australian continent for 40,000 years, although new evidence suggests that they may have been here for over 120,000 years. Regardless, aboriginal land management practices were sustainable, but with the arrival of civilization, deforestation, game farming, agriculture, cities and mining have destroyed many ecosystems. Extractive industries are the darlings of the Australian government, or more accurately, they run Australia, so unless a serious culture of resistance is organized here, these mechanisms will continue to gobble up the continent’s natural “resources.”

END:CIV has been extremely well received here. At the screening in Adelaide, long time anti-mining activist, Uncle Kevin Buzzacutt said the film had fired him up and gave him more energy to continue fighting. Uncle Kevin belongs to the Arabunna Nation and has been working to shut down the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia, which extracts copper and uranium. Even though the mine is not in Arabunna territory, BHP Billiton, the owner of the operation, extracts over 35 million litres of water a day from Uncle Kevin’s people’s land.

Yep, the Olympic dam mine is in the desert, and I went to visit the area to shoot video for the next dispatch of “Stop the Flows.” Uncle Kevin’s nephew, Peter Watts was kind enough to guide us through the outback and show us the water sources that are being depleted. The Australian bush is gorgeous. Even at 44 degree temperatures (around 112 Fahrenheit) plants and animals abound in this arid landscape. I saw kangaroos, emus, dingos, crows, lizards and magpies. Peter also treated us to several types of “bush tucker” (food) that grows wild in South Australia. As you can imagine water is in short supply, and the desert can’t sustain both a mine and it’s local inhabitants. In other words the mine has to go.

The mine itself is massive. The first two nights we camped in its vicinity, and the glow from it’s floodlights lit up the sky all night long. We bought tickets to the tour of the mine and were told that video and photos were prohibited. But we were able to record the entire spectacle using a hidden mobile phone video camera. As expected, the tour guide told us of BHP’s commitment to the environment and to safety, but when asked if he knew that uranium from their mine was used to fuel the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, he claimed ignorance. The fact is that it’s true. It was also revealed that BHP pays nothing for the water it uses to operate the mine. To make matters worst, the Australian government recently approved the expansion of the Olympic Dam mine and if not stopped it will become the largest open pit mine in the world. Expect a full video report in the next few weeks. I’m still raising funds to help pay for this report, so if you have a few bucks to spare, click here.

While I’ve been traveling, emails have been piling up in my inbox asking me about the ant-black bloc column by Chris Hedges entitled: “The Cancer of Occupy.” People want to know what I think since I’ve been staunch supporter of the tactic, but also because Derrick Jensen is quoted in the article. I will not write a full retort, because aside from being about two weeks too late, there’s been plenty of thoughtful responses that I can get behind, mainly David Graeber’s “Concerning the violent peace-police: an open letter to Chris Hedges.” But I’ll throw a few thoughts in for good measure.

I’ve rarely experienced the collective solidarity that I witnessed in Toronto during the anti-G20 “Get off the Fence” march. The black bloc in that march thwarted a 1 billion dollar security apparatus and smashed up the financial district and shopping districts of a major north American city. Proving that even under the watchful eye of the state, extraordinary actions can be accomplished and shattering the myth that the police are unbeatable.

Furthermore, if you take a look at Egypt’s Ultras, they were instrumental in the street fighting that eventually forced Hosni Mubarak to resign. The Ultras are soccer hooligans who cut their teeth fighting the cops after matches during Mubarak’s reign. How else is someone to gain experience engaging security personnel, blockading roads and disabling infrastructure? People who engage in black bloc tactics get “on the job training” and learn decentralized organization, working within affinity groups, security culture, de-arresting comrades and counter surveillance among other things. Have black bloc tactics brought down civilization? Certainly not. But they have been useful tools for propaganda, morale raising and promoting militancy, as well as the things I mentioned above.

What I do agree with is Jensen’s assertion that our movements should be strategic about how and when tactics are used. Having a long term goal informs how we deploy tactics and helps us prioritize the risks we take. If our actions increase the risk of getting comrades jailed, it better be worth it, otherwise we are simply sacrificing people and community resources to actions that don’t make a dent in the infrastructure of civilization.

Finally, I find it hard to swallow that many people are willing to write off Jensen completely, because they don’t agree with his stance on the black bloc. That is simply intellectual laziness and political purism. Of course we are not going to agree with everything a person says or writes, as I know many people who view my videos don’t agree with all my opinions. But many have chosen this as opportunity to attack and attempt to discredit one of the best and bravest writers we have, and I’m not talking about Hedges. Like I said a few years ago of Naomi Klein, just because she said some things I found problematic in Copenhagen and in Toronto, doesn’t make “No Logo” or “The Shock Doctrine” invalid.

With that said, I’m off to Melbourne tomorrow, then on to Wollongong and concluding the Australian tour in Brisbane. Stay tuned for more angst from the road.

Dispatch #2 of Stop the Flows focuses on burgeoning anti-nuke movement in Japan, following the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Truth be told I had larger plans for this dispatch. But with time and resources lacking, I could only scratch the surface of not just the anti-nuke movement, but of the anarchist and activist scene in Japan. So what you see here is nearly a glimpse into the world of the folks who will end nuclear power in Japan for good.
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END:CIV; kültürümüzün sistematik şiddete ve çevresel sömürüye olan bağımlılığını inceliyor ve sonuçta zehirlenen tabiatı ve savaş bunalımındaki ulusları derinlemesine araştırıyor. Derrick Jensen’in Endgame (Oyun Sonu) adlı kitabına dayanan END:CIV izleyiciye şu soruyu soruyor: “Yaşadığınız topraklar, ormanları kesen, suyu ve havayı kirleten ve besin kaynaklarınızı zehirleyen yaratıklar tarafından işgal edilseydi, direnir miydiniz?”… Uygarlıkların çökmelerinin altında yatan nedenleri genellikle kaynakların aşırı kullanımına dayanır. Bunu yazarken, dünya ekonomik kaos, petrolün zirvesi, iklim değişikliği, çevresel yıkım ve politik karışıklıkla sendeliyor. Hergün, manşetler skandal hikayelerini ve kamu güvensizliğini temcit pilavı gibi ısıtıp ısıtıp önümüze koyuyor. Şu anki küresel sistemin sonuna dair öfkeli taleplerde bulunmamız gerekmiyor – çünkü çok yakında çökecek gibi görünüyor. Ancak, en çok hasar görmüş yerlerde bile cesaret, merhamet ve özgecilik eylemleri kaynıyor. Savaş ve baskının ağır etkilerine maruz kalmış insanların dirençliliğini ve ilerleyen krizle yüzleşmek için öne atılanların kahramanlıklarını belgeleyerek, END:CIV bu herşeyi tüketen çılgınlığın dışında makul bir geleceğe ışık tutar. Jensen’in anlatımı ile desteklenmiş film bizleri bu toprakları gerçekten seviyorsak eyleme geçmeye çağırıyor. Film, küresel ekonomik sistemin çözümlemesini yapmak için müziği, arşivsel metrajı, hareketli grafikleri, animasyonu, güldürüyü ve hicvi de kullanarak enerjik bir tempoda ilerliyor. END:CIV, Jensen’in şiirsel ve sezgisel yaklaşımıyla örtüşen birinci elden fedakarlık ve kahramanlık hikayelerini dikkatle ve duygusal olarak heyecanla yansıtıyor. Taşrada çekilmiş ekran görüntüleri korkunç ama olağan yıkımın traşlama kanıtının yanısıra kesici doğal güzelliğin perde arkasını gözler önüne seriyor.

It’s been a whirlwind of a year for me. I started touring with END:CIV almost a year ago so far I’ve personally shown it over 100 times. Yep, that’s more than 100 Q and A sessions in four countries and in four languages. I’ve traveled over 40,000 KM by foot, bike, boats, van, buses, jets and trains. Online views of END:CIV are close to 80,000 on multiple platforms and grassroots screenings keep popping up every month. So far I’ve posted 9 translations on the website with a few more in the coming weeks including Turkish, Mandarin, Cantonese and Indonesian. All in all I consider this 5 year project a success.

My newest project has the working title of Stop the Flows. Over the next five years I will document resistance movements that are working towards stopping the flows of hydro carbons, mineral extraction, natural resources and capital, through grassroots and underground organizing. I will publish the dispatches as I complete them with the goal of compiling them into a feature length documentary to be released on 2016.

The first dispatch took me to Central BC where Unis’toten nation are pre-empting the construction of 4 oil and gas pipelines through their traditional territories. You can watch that here. The next dispatch will focus on the growing opposition to an oil pipeline expansion right here where I live in Vancouver. In December I will compile the hours of interviews and footage I gathered while in Japan, for a dispatch spotlighting the growing grassroots anti-nuke movement. In January I hope to travel to Australia to continue touring and gathering material for Stop the Flows and ditto goes for Europe in the spring.

So this is my pitch and appeal for financial support. As you may or may not know, subMedia does no receive money from foundations, corporations or governments. This fact has kept our media truly independent and rogue, videos that don’t mince words or tap dance around the issues. I feel the this type of unfiltered media is crucial in these times, when we are witnessing increased suppression of dissent, but also the birth of a global revolutionary movement.

With that said, consider donating a few bucks to subMedia. The goal is to raise $10,000 by the end of the year to push these projects through the winter.

Thanks again for supporting radical media!

frank

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END:CIV は、私達の文化が常習的に繰り返す組織的な暴力と環境破壊についてのドキュメンタリーだ。その結果として生み出されるのは、汚染された大地と、精神に動揺を来した国家である。デリック･ジェンセンの著作『エンドゲーム（最終局面）』に部分的に依拠しながら、 END:CIV は次のような質問を見る者に投げかける。「エイリアンが故郷を侵略して木々を切り倒し、水と空気そして食料を汚染したとしたら、あなたは抵抗するだろうか。」

文明の崩壊の原因を辿れば、多くの場合、資源の過剰な消費という要因にたどり着く。経済の混乱、石油の枯渇、気候変動、環境の悪化などの問題によって、世界は不安定な状態に陥っている。新聞や雑誌の見出しに日々踊るのは、人々の期待への裏切りとスキャンダルの物語だ。だが現在のグローバル･システムの終焉を怒りとともに要求する必要などない。システムは、既に崩壊しつつあるのだから。

最悪の被害をこうむった場所にさえ、勇気と共感、そして利他主義の行動の輪は広がっている。戦争と不況の最大の被害者が立ち直る姿、そして真正面からこの危機に立ち向かう人々の勇気ある行為を映し出すことで、 END:CIV は全てを消費しつくそうとする狂気からの脱出と、より健全な未来への道のりを照らし出す。

デリック･ジェンセンの主張を根拠に、このドキュメンタリーは見る者に、この大地への本当の愛を求めてくる。矢継ぎ早に進行しながら、音楽や過去の映像、モーショングラフィックス、アニメーション、ユーモアや皮肉を巧みに散りばめる事で、私達の身の回りで内部崩壊しているグローバルな経済システムを、このドキュメンタリーは解体しようとしているのである。 END:CIV は当事者の犠牲や勇気ある行動を取り上げ、そこに強烈な、感情をかきたてる映像を加えることで、ジェンセンの詩的で直感的なアプローチと絶妙の調和を示している。未開地で撮影された映像は、日常的に起こっている恐ろしい破壊行為の明白な証拠であるとともに、息を呑むような自然の美しさという一服の清涼剤を与えてくれる。

END:CIVでインタビューに応じてくれた関係者は以下の通りである。
ポール･ワトソン、ワジヤタウィン、ゴード・ヒル、マイケル･ベッカー、ピーター・ゲルダルース、リエール・キース、ジェームズ・ハワード・カンスラー、ステファニー・マックミラン、クワチナス、ロッド・コロナド、ジョン・ザーザン、スティーヴン・ベスト、アリック・マクベイ、ジョージ・ポイトラス、シュスリ、ゾーエ・ブラント、ドルー・オジャ・ジェイ、マヤ･ロビン−ゲイニー、シャノン･ウォルシュ、マクドナルド・ステインズビー、マイク・マークレディ

監督：フランクリン・ロペス／2011年／75分／日本語字幕：島大吾
For more tour dates click here

It’s been a whirlwind two weeks in Japan. From the moment of my arrival I knew I was in for a ride. I was supposed to meet Narita. the lead organizer for the tour at Shijuku station. Unbeknown to me, Shijuku station is the biggest train station in Tokyo with an estimated 2 million people going through it every single fuckin day. Alas I did not find him, and had to figure out where the screening was. With no phone, and no a lick of knowledge of the Japanese language, it took me 30 minutes to find an internet cafe (bizarre fuckin place, but that’s another story). Long story long, I make to to Cafe Lavanderia, an anti-capitalist event space to find a packed room still watching END:CIV. The organizers had to add a second screening to accommodate the over 100 people who showed up. Jet lagged, tired, hungry and cranky, I have to gain my composure and take part on a panel discussion with Kanzen Jisatsu Manyuaru best selling author of “The Complete Manual on Suicide” (yeah that’s right) and Ill Commonz. Yeah, that was all within my first 2 hours in Tokyo.

What followed was 14 jammed packed days of screenings and interviews. No, I’m not big in Japan and the media doesn’t want to talk to me, I was conducting interviews for a report I’m preparing on the grassroots anti-nuclear movement here. What’s happening here is not dissimilar to the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. People here are fed up with the lies, inaction, and misinformation coming from the nuclear industry and their servants in the Government.

Activism here is not seen in a positive light by society in general and during the 80′s and 90′s there was hardly any visible trace of dissent in this country, or so I’m told. Then came the Iraq war, and mass demonstrations broke the spell of Japanese politeness. Those where followed by anti-G8 protests in 2008. So far this year there have been large (10,000′s) anti-nuclear rallies, every month since the Fukushima nuclear disaster. At the centre of this movement is group of merry trouble makers called Amateur Riot. These folks are based in the neighbourhood of Koenji, and consist of 14 tiny shops that sell anything from used furniture and appliances, second hand clothes, to bars and restaurants. These shops have provided safe spaces for activist to organize their actions. But more on that on my video report.

One of my biggest surprises here, has been poverty. Yep, there’s poor people here. And homeless too! There’s also foreign day labourers that are sent to work inside the evacuation zone in Fukushima. Like Canada, Japan guards is reputation as a democratic techno utopia with great zeal. But the economy here is tanking and unemployment growing. Suicides rates are some of the highest in the industrialized world, with over 3,000 in May alone. If you find that your trusted and punctual public transport system is delayed, chances are high that someone jumped in front of a train.

Yep, I’m vomiting all of this onto the page (so to speak) because I still have much to process. But all in all, people here are great. The hospitality I’ve received has been unparalleled and people’s resilience is amazing, even with the spectre of radiation polluting half the island. The fighting spirit I’ve witnessed has renewed my optimism, and hope that my video report further informs North Americans and beyond about the growing movement here.

Tomorrow, I return to Vancouver to join the thousands who will occupy the Vancouver Art Gallery, and by extension the billions who make the 99%.

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My plan to go to Europe has been postponed indefinitely. Seems that that this chunk of Turtle Island that I call home has become North America’s largest exporter of fossil fuels. So I’m going to stick around here for the time being to help document and agitate, around the multiple proposed mega projects, that not only threaten the natural beauty of what settlers call British Columbia, but that would blast more carbon into the atmosphere.

So I’m switching gears and I’ve started a project with a working title of “Stop the Flows“.

I still plan to go to Europe and Australia next year and next week I head to Japan to screen END:CIV in half a dozen cities. The film project “The Resistance” is still on, but it may merge into “Stop the Flows” and look at resistance movements against extraction. We’ll see.

All for now, wish me luck in the land of the rising sun.

I’ve been off for about 5 weeks and I can’t tell you how refreshed I feel. The five months of touring in North America were good, but I came very close to reaching burn out. I made it home a day before a spontaneous insurrection that rocked the streets of downtown following the loss of the Vancouver Canucks in the Stanley Cup finals. Couldn’t expect a better welcome.

Even though I’ve been mostly relaxing – riding my bike, going to the beach, reading Octavia Butler – I did do some work at Sutikalh, a protection camp that successfully halted the building of a ski resort eleven years ago. Supporters continually provide material support to keep this gorgeous area from being developed. I joined a group of about 30 anarchists to help build a cabin, dig a trench for an outhouse and split wood among other tasks.

This week myself and some comrades, embarked on a mini tour of BC to screen END:CIV in Lillooet, Prince George, Smithers and Moricetown. Like most of BC, all of these areas are rich in what capitalists call “resources” and have been exploited for hundreds of years to extract wood and minerals or to dam the rivers for hydro electric generation.

But the issue that has people talking in BC is the proposed pipeline that will bring dirty tar sands oil to the pacific. This pipeline will be over 1,000 kilometres long, and will bring deforestation and potential oil spills to rivers and indigenous communities along the way. It will also create a corridor with high oil tanker traffic that would threaten one of the most beautiful ecological regions left in the planet, the coast of British Columbia.

Even though the pipeline has not been approved, communities are getting ready to oppose it. The final stop on our tour is Moricetown, where members of the Wet’suwet’en nation are holding their second action camp to build resistance against the proposed pipeline.

Finally, here’s a clip from Aric McBay, who is featured in END:CIV, debating conservative talk show host Brian Lilley on Canada’s SunNews, our Fox News equivalent.

Stay tuned for more updates and dates for the END:CIV tour of Japan in the following weeks.

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Anyway, here are some non-sequential thoughts and highlights from the road.

I spent 10 days in Montreal. Like New Orleans, there’s no other place like it in North America. Listening to people speak french is romantic and all, but the anarchist scene there is tops. Cheap rents allow people maximum time to work on their projects and spaces for folks to congregate abound. Graffiti is prolific throughout the city’s industrial sectors and political posters are plastered on every neighbourhood. In an abandoned building, I heard a talk from a comrade about the struggle for space in Vancouver, where the rents are ridiculously high, and city zoning inspectors have a weak sense of humour when it comes to aerosol art. Our sole anarchist social space was shut down a few weeks ago, and I’ve been dreaming about how we are going to fill that void this summer and beyond.

I crossed back into Obamaland three days ago, and the one thing I had on my mind as I approached the security check point at Niagara Falls, was all the people I met, who are or have been, in one way or another swallowed up by the “Justice” system. Most of those were rounded up in the post-g20 witch hunt of anarchists. Others are long time revolutionaries like anarchist black panther Ashanti Alston and urban guerrillas Ed Mead and Mark Cook of the George Jackson Brigade. Look for those interviews later this summer on subMedia.tv

While in Kingston, a city with seven prisons, I had the pleasure of meeting Ann Hansen of the Vancouver guerrilla group, Direct Action. Hansen gave a talk about the Conservatives’ plan to expand Canada’s prisons, now that they have obtained a majority in Parliament.

The night before I screened END:CIV at the anarchist social space AKA. Aric McBay, who is featured on the film, gave a talk about sustaining communities of resistance. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I believe that in order to be successful, our communities of resistance have to be multigenerational, need spaces to call their own and support people who are caught up by the system. Aric’s talk pretty much sums it up.

Finally, last night in Buffalo, Leslie James Pickering, from the Earth Liberation Front Press Office, gave a talk about liberation movements in North America and the about the exploits of the ELF.

As I enter the final stretch of this crazy tour, I wonder what would it take for peeps to shit to the next level, to really build a revolutionary movement that dismantles this mad system once and for all. Or is it really going to be the end of the world as we know it?