Is the takeover of housing by institutional investors a conspiracy theory, or does the evidence support a global pattern? The Filmmaker and the Advocate discuss their experiences investigating the financialization of housing. No matter where they travelled, South Korea, Sweden, Canada, the Czech Republic -- all roads seemed to lead to a single private equity firm: Blackstone. Fredrik and Leilani discuss the problematic of “fake news”, and the need to continue to mine for the truth to substantiate human rights claims and to hold those responsible for violations to account. The episode ends with a lot of love from and for our patrons and listeners in more than 85 countries across the planet!
Produced by WG Film
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson, Maja Moberg & Melinda Bergstrand
Is the takeover of housing by institutional investors a conspiracy theory, or does the evidence support a global pattern? The Filmmaker and the Advocate discuss their experiences investigating the financialization of housing. No matter where they travelled, South Korea, Sweden, Canada, the Czech Republic -- all roads seemed to lead to a single private equity firm: Blackstone. Fredrik and Leilani discuss the problematic of “fake news”, and the need to continue to mine for the truth to substantiate human rights claims and to hold those responsible for violations to account. The episode ends with a lot of love from and for our patrons and listeners in more than 85 countries across the planet!
Produced by WG Film
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson, Maja Moberg & Melinda Bergstrand
Fredrik Gertten 0:13
I'm Fredrik Gertten and I'm the filmmaker.
Leilani Farha 0:17
And I'm Leilani Farha. And I'm the advocate.
Fredrik Gertten 0:20
So we are rolling. We are rolling. And how is life over in your bunker or your in your bunker country Canada? Is everything fine?
Leilani Farha 0:30
We just had a long weekend. It's a very, it's called Thanksgiving here. It's an amazing weekend, only because you get to eat a lot of food. And the leaves are changing colour. So it's just gorgeous, stunning, everywhere.
Fredrik Gertten 0:45
So you kill birds and then you watch leaves.
Leilani Farha 0:49
That's right. But I happen to be vegetarian. So I don't engage in the killing of birds. But I kill fish actually. And then I eat them.
Fredrik Gertten 0:59
That's fine. Yeah. Okay. And workwise are you busy building the shift, I guess.
Leilani Farha 1:04
Yeah, some cool stuff going on. Last week, we launched the global homelessness action, which is different than most work on homelessness in that we're trying to get homeless people from around the world to actually claim their right to housing, which is unusual, because normally people think about homelessness and charity, you know, that, that, that they should just be given, you know, some handouts, and we're trying to mobilise homeless people around the world to recognise that what they're missing is the human right to housing, and that governments have an obligation. So we just started this sort of action last week, and we got some really good feedback already. And we're gonna post videos and audio clips of people claiming their right to housing who are living in homelessness, it's kind of cool
Fredrik Gertten 1:56
Indeed, cool. Indeed, cool. And it's this is like the homeless population is also a group that most people don't really want to interact with. You know, it's like it's very painful. It's easier to walk by than and stop. I understand that feeling totally, because it's, it's, it's very painful. Definitely. I co directed a film of South Africa. Do you know about that called Josie gold?
Leilani Farha 2:20
I know about it what's going on with Josie Gold? I've seen it.
Fredrik Gertten 2:23
It has been suffering a bit. As all, most films COVID, the closing of cinemas and so on, but it's actually for our listeners in Sweden. It's up now on svt play. And also the same in the Netherlands. You can also watch it in the Netherlands out. And in America. It's now playing in a festival in New York, which you guys can catch online in United States. You should go to to the wgfilm.com website and check out all those kind of facts. And then other story from this side is that our friends, Blackstone, they have been out shopping, they've been shopping,
Leilani Farha 2:23
what have they been buying now?
Fredrik Gertten 2:24
they've been buying from almost the same amount as they bought into our friends at Oatly. They have not been buying real estate in Malmö. So it's basically logistical infrastructure. But one of them is one of the oldest artists studio plays in Malmo, which has a 20 year lease by the city, the city is leasing this for 20 years. And now the artists are extremely upset because they actually tried to to secure it and buy the house and the seller accepted this offer from Blackstone that they couldn't refuse. So it's it's a, they are, they're moving in and they're always moving quick. And what I don't really understand what I don't know, is how they get to know about these deals. We know that Blackstone are looking for, you know, under evaluated assets. But how do they find it? I'm sure there is a lot of middlemen out there who knows that Blackstone is out looking they have money they want to spend? So there are probably a lot of firms who are pitching business towards Blackstone and others, of course, also.
Leilani Farha 4:21
Yeah, well, I think that they actually use some software to monitor what's coming good on the market and what's available and etc. I had heard that somewhere. I don't know. I think Aaron glance told me and, and I think they spent a lot of time Blackstone spent a lot of time after the global financial crisis, investing in technology to help them make these deals. I would be interesting to research that actually, maybe we should do a little I'll get someone to do a little research into that. It could be kind of cool.
Fredrik Gertten 4:56
I know from the UK when we premiered a film in In the UK, I heard about Blackstone buying the railway arcades, both in Scotland and around London, which meant that a lot of spaces that have been kind of reasonable in rent, you know, the, the structures under the railway. So, but I met one of the journalists that interviewed us in London, her kid was at the kindergarten, one of those and now they have to push up to fee because Blackstone had bought the space and made it more expensive. So it's they are they're moving in many directions.
Leilani Farha 5:38
Mm hmm. In Malmö, is it Blackstone or is it a subsidiary company?
Fredrik Gertten 5:43
I mean, this story, when it came out in this kind of real estate newsletter, it was actually named Blackstone. I never haven't seen that before. Interesting. Yeah. But I don't know. I haven't looked into the story behind. I mean, I haven't seen the documents and so but it's right. It's a lot of things cooking. We have a lot of things to talk about today. But first, we actually have listeners, do you know that? We, we reserved, and in many countries, actually now 87 countries and the last last country to come in was Haiti. Amazing. And the country 86 was Algeria. So we have audience. It's cool. And, and I just saw Actually, this was on LinkedIn, Melanie in Stockholm. She wrote saying, amazing podcast, I'm listening to every episode with much interest, and sometimes horror. So and then she also asked us to be on a cast and other platform, I don't know, we have to look into that we are not, we're not podcast savvy. We're just trying. So if you have tips on how we can reach out better and you know, be smarter and how we can actually make money, you know, to fund the work. Tell us please. Lara in Amsterdam. She's an architect from Spain, she, she's been writing a lot. And, and she has made almost the same kind of comment like Melanie that it's sometimes too scary these the reality that we are sharing. So it's a bit depressing. So she was looking for more positive stories, you know, the fight back the push back stories, and, and I actually think she's right, and we. So that's something for an upcoming episode to look into. Because there is a lot of resistance going on. And I'm sorry, so also tell us about resistance stories.
Leilani Farha 7:47
Hmm. Yeah, let's do an episode on that for sure. We can we can energise people with other people's energy? Yeah, even in the middle of a pandemic, there's a lot of stuff going on.
Fredrik Gertten 7:58
There is an and one very strong thing now in the pandemic is this kind of battle of facts, you know, and so, this week will be a podcast about pushback in the Post truth era? No, is what we are seeing? Is it a conspiracy? Or is it a pattern? What do you think?
Leilani Farha 8:25
I have to say from when I started researching into financialization, it had the feeling or texture, my experience had the feeling or texture of a conspiracy and I mean, I can plot it out for you. I mean, I had when I researched my thematic report, when I was rapporteur I wrote a report on financialization. And the the name that sort of popped out first, as the biggest player was Blackstone biggest private equity firm in the area of residential real estate. And so I had the name in my head, then it was a little bit like, you know, when you learn something new, you see it everywhere. Well, that's what started happening to me. So yeah, yeah. So it was like, suddenly, I mean, I knew that Blackstone had been in Spain because of course, my research had showed that and that they were a big player there. Then we interview that fellow Derrick, in Harlem, and we're in Harlem, and he's talking about Blackstone. And then I had received notice about a big eviction in outside of Prague in the Czech Republic in a suburb, and the eviction was of Roma people from apartment building. And they were converting the apartment building into a senior's residence. It was very devastating because Roma have a very hard time to find anywhere to live. So the fact that they were in this building was very important. The fact that they were being evicted was very worrying to me as rapporteur, of course. And so I started investigating who's doing this eviction. The name of the company started with a deed demoed. I can't remember but and then I did a bit of a corporate search, boom, Blackstone. And then I go to University of Colorado to talk about Push Push hadn't been released yet. But we were finishing up and it was about to premiere and I was there to talk about financialization. And then the Dean of the law school tells me that Blackstone is a major player in investing in research in the law school. And he had no idea that they were also involved in these areas.
Fredrik Gertten 10:34
And then he came to Sweden to make a speech. And I said, oh, let's let's film a little bit in Sweden. And we did some research. I did some research and boom, Blackstone was the biggest private investor of Swedish suburbian suburbian. Low Income Housing. So it's, it's Yeah, it's true. It there is a feeling of conspiracy, but you know, I saw I saw on on TV the other day, here in Sweden, but it's probably out in many countries, it's a doc called United States of conspiracy. So it's a frontline production in so that from 20th floor to PBS in the US by Michael Kirk, so it's, it's following this crazy guy, Alex Jones. Yeah. info wars, you know, who is he is at 911 was fake, you know, and he kept going, and the crazier he got, the more audience he got, you know, it became a very strong business. And, and because of the the settings of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, all they really decreased regard the more audience he got. So that's like, the conspiracy theory thrives Well, in the new social media world. So, of course, a lot of politicians understood that. And then, of course, Trump jumped in and, and entered his show and so on. And, you know, this is the guy who also said that the parents of Sandy Hook the massacre were actors.
Leilani Farha 12:15
right.
Fredrik Gertten 12:17
Crazy. So it's, it's really crazy. But this is now you know, this is now the this is the American elections coming up. Now, you know, this is, this is what we are meeting everywhere, crazy ideas thrown out. But I'm not going to talk about this, these crazy theories or the Q anon and all these stories that the world is flat, you know, all that it's like, but it's the thing is that it's almost like a rebellion to cling on to one of these. You're, you're, you're against the big conspiracy against the big power if you're selling out these, these strange theories. But for us, you know, what we are Leilani, as I see it, we are on the totally other side, our what we want to do, what we want to achieve is to bring knowledge up, bring understanding up connecting dots, but then all these easily constructed or strangely constructed theories are also pushed, thrown against us.
Leilani Farha 13:23
Absolutely, to me a conspiracy theory is when you reject a kind of normal explanation of an event or of something of a phenomenon, and you attribute it to some secret, something secret going on or something hidden. And in that way, it's so easy for my work for your work to fall into that conspiracy theory label. Because, in fact, the main description before you made push of the housing crisis was what? There's not enough housing out there. And that's why people are suffering. You know, though, so housing is expensive, because there's a scarce resource and scarce resources are expensive. And your film and my work challenge that we are saying, No, actually there are a whole lot of corporates out there, court, massive investors who are eating up housing stock and doing all sorts of things that drive up the cost of housing and there's a lot of corrupt money out there landing into housing that pushes up prices and decreases supply etc. and and what else do we say Fredrik, we say that this is happening under the radar. It's this silent monster invading cities. All of that makes it really easy for those who reject our analysis and our facts and our data to label us as part of some left wing conspiracy theory type of people Which is ridiculous because I've met so many thousands of people now hundreds of people across the world who identify a pattern. And who are I have all the stories I have my notes, you film them. But you see how, how easy it is?
Fredrik Gertten 15:16
Yeah, but i i don't i don't totally agree because I, I haven't met so many people really telling me that I am a left wing, something you know, I met also, I also meet a lot of people who are in real estate to say that you're totally right. And this is the problem. I mean, I was in, in a TV studio in Stockholm, and I met their financial expert, he was going to talk about the stock market. And he said, yeah, this is what's happening. This is what you tell him to film, this is exactly what's going on. There's too much money out there, and it's pushing up the prices. And this will not end well was his line. You know, so it's, I think a lot of people can see it. And of course, but of course, you're right, we're in some kind of language war. And if you go back to, you know, we talked about the the Corona, you know, there is, of course, there is a lot of popular sense out there, saying this is something behind, you know, there is Big Pharma going out there and they are the reason that we're locking down societies and like a big conspiracy is almost like Trump is almost saying the same, like, it's like the Deep State and the Big Pharma and Bill Gates is going to take the election away from him. So, of course, sending in doubt is a is a classical way. And of course, the left could do the same thing and say, Blackstone is a conspiracy. I don't want to go there.
Leilani Farha 16:49
No, me neither,
Fredrik Gertten 16:49
No, because I think we see blackston are real. And, and of course, they are in many ways, as Stiglitz says, in our film, they're in action, they're evil, their actions are evil. But then a lot of people are a lot of money that goes into the Blackstone products could also be our own savings, our own pension funds. And, and we don't we have no idea what many money lands and what effect that money has. So it's, it's very much a system that is evil. And I wouldn't even call it capitalism. I know it's that. Of course, that's that's also an easy way say, yeah, capitalism is the evil boom, let's move on. But of course, it this is a very extreme part of the of this financial economic system that has these effects. And it's also partly a new part of it.
Leilani Farha 17:45
One of the things I have to say that happens in my work, and it's to be a responsible human rights advocate, I have to make sure that I'm not over inflating or inflating a phenomenon, creating something where there's nothing or you know, I have to be there's a responsibility to, to properly document a name, infringement on human rights. And there were times and not so much now. But there were times as I was researching and talking to people and where I would start to feel like, am I overblowing, this whole private equity control over housing, have I created a monster that isn't there in my own head in my own work. And then every time I would have that feeling, a new fact would emerge. You know, I was looking at housing in Toronto, when everyone was talking about Starlite, a new asset management firm really moving in and causing a lot of problems in Toronto and other places in Canada. And I scratched the surface of starlight and their institutional partner is Blackstone. And so I get you know, I'm reminded, I think we have a responsibility to make sure that we are presenting what we know to be true and not over inflating and only, as you say, connecting the dots. But the industry itself, Fredrik, I mean, I've had unlike you, I've had slightly different experiences. Yes, I have a lot of affirmation, certainly from tenants, and certainly from some insiders in the real estate development, that kind of world. But I've also had people say to me, private equity only rep, I mean, their investments, it's such a small little portion of their pie, residential real estate, you're making too big of a deal of it. I've been told look in Canada, for example, they only own 20% of rental accommodation in the country. That's not such a big amount. We see and that way they start making me feel like I'm I'm being more of a conspiracy theorists than human rights advocate.
Fredrik Gertten 19:54
And, and I think Blackstone for sure. wants to minimise like who they are and what they're doing. That's and so they want to play played themselves down. And that goes for the whole industry, they are not. I mean, we kind of made them we're about to make them a household name in some way, which they had never been before. So it's that's why the newspaper suddenly can make a headline with Blackstone because it's suddenly it has a value of some kind. But the interesting thing that that Blackstone wants to downplay themselves, and but then they're siding with President Trump, who is siding with these kind of anti facts, fake news, you know, and the journalism anti science, you know, it's very, it's very strange, you know, we have, we have this huge creature, Blackstone, they don't want us to see them, and to understand them, and then they are, you know, that's why this, this link with with this, Alex Jones, and Roger stone, who was this guy who worked with Trump and been you know, like this kind of guy who has been around forever in the Republican Party. And, and then with Blackstone, so it's like, it's, you have this really cold side, very efficient, very rich, and then you have the lunatics kind of working for the same. It's, hard to understand, I think, and that's one of the reasons that we have to be very sharp in what we do, quite often our message to when we meet people at screenings to ask people to map your own community, who are the new owners who owns the homes in your community? Who are the new owners, and how are they funded? You know, we talking about this, this Norwegian own company based here in Malmö called Heimstaden, which is like they're big in Sweden, they bought 44,000 apartments in the Czech Republic of Blackstone. Now, I got an email yesterday, from activists in Berlin, said, Fredrik, can you help us, because heimstaden they have just bought 146 buildings in Berlin, it's a lot. And so they're moving in, and they want to have to meet have contact with people who have experience here. So it's an Of course, it's not only about understanding heimstaden or Akelius or Blackstone is all to say, who are their funders? Because it's quite often, pension funds, and so on. So, so that all that knowledge, we need to keep digging it up. And you need to do that in your own town. Because that's the best way of fighting back conspiracy or not. But I mean, I think it's by understanding it, and we will also make it less of a conspiracy, you know,
Leilani Farha 22:44
I think that's right. I hadn't thought I like what you said, I hadn't thought about that before. The link between Blackstone and Trump and then fake news. And I have to admit, when the whole fake news thing started with Trump, I actually didn't even understand it. And and it's only recently, I think, because I'm not travelling, I actually am watching the news more, and I'm now suffering this US election because in Canada or media's surely...
Fredrik Gertten 23:11
You shouldn't watch the news, it's a bad thing.
Leilani Farha 23:13
it's a very bad thing. And it went, but in any event, it penetrates our airwaves here. And from, I think, from a human rights advocate point of view, the idea that people can just make up facts, and present them as the truth, which is, in fact, what Trump does when he names fake news and creates his own. And he saw this in his entire approach to COVID, for example, is it it is so undermining of the Human Rights Project, because at least as I see it, in my work, I mean, so much of what I've been trying to do, especially in the last six, seven years, is bringing forward the stories and experiences that are true of everyday people around the world who are not able to have a decent home and can't afford it being evicted, etc. And if in one quick act, someone can say, that's fake. Here's the truth. Everyone around the world is fine. Yeah, it's pretty scary. It completely undermines the project. Right
Fredrik Gertten 24:26
It is and and we need to understand what Trump is doing is shifting the focus. It's a technique, you know, and then we tweet or a lot of our friends tweet and Facebook and say, Oh, he's crazy. Have you seen you know, he's crazy. And then they post is stupid comments. And then you also become a part of the whole, the game show that he is. Remember the tobacco industry when they started to get problem when people found out that you get actually get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes, the tobacco industry developed a technique. What was that it was to send in aturnative science. Yes, it might be true that you get cancer. But there's also these researchers says that you can actually get healthier by smoking cigarettes. So they will, their back by sending in aturnative science. It became like, Okay, so this research says this, and the other says, This is like a way of taking down the real story and making it less dangerous. And you can see that coming up, one up, you have the classical denial of the of the Holocaust. Of course, that's also the same kind of technique, you you start to send in a lot of the counter science counter stories to make this horrible story less, you know, true. And and now we have the climate deniers, you know, so it's, it is part of the same thing. And I think I still believe that, what we have to do is to keep telling the true stories and not enter into their ballgame of stupid things. And I think that's, I mean, the success of Greta. I'm still proud from being from the same country.
Leilani Farha 24:30
She's amazing
Fredrik Gertten 26:17
She's amazing. But she is also very clear. Listen to science. You know, of course, there is a lot of counter signs being sent in the same way. But But she's, she's sending out facts. And she's doing that day by day by day. And I think we have to do the same things about the factors that are destroying our cities in our lives. So instead of going all the way into to their world.
Leilani Farha 26:44
no, I think that's right. That's part of what why we started that global homelessness action was to flood as much as we could, and create the narrative that homelessness at the scale in which the world is experiencing it, cannot simply be about drug abuse, and laziness, which is, you know, or criminality, which is what's normally attributed to homeless people, and that there's something bigger and structural going on here. The only way to do that is to get those, that kind of people science out into the public domain. So.
Fredrik Gertten 27:20
Yeah, we have some more letters from listeners,
Leilani Farha 27:26
I'd like to hear that.
Fredrik Gertten 27:27
We have a guy called Marcus. And he said, we made a comment in the podcast about, you know, this illegal money, you know, you know, when the criminals move in, then they pass it on to the next generation. And suddenly, you know, that you you launder the criminal money. And he says, there's actually a film about all that. And that's the Godfather. So the Godfather is basically about that. And in The Godfather three, it's very much about that. Oh, it's the Vatican's real estate that there. It's all about the big fights. It's actually true. And it's now
Leilani Farha 28:09
I'll have to go back I was pretty young when the Godfather came out, but and I did but I did watch it. I was young, but I watched it eventually. But I've never seen godfather three so now I have...
Fredrik Gertten 28:20
Because at that time that the Catholic Church was really big, a real estate course and I guess they still are, but but it was you know that I remember that film as a part of this was was also the murdering of a of a socialist Pope you know, in in this that is also in the film, okay, okay. Anyway, that's, that's from Marcus. But we have Patreon. Patreon is a way to support the podcast. We're kind of new at this we don't really know how to fund this podcast even if we have audience in many places. We still do this on our bleeding knees. But we have a few patrons and and we love them a lot. Because they give us like $5 a month. So you please be one of the push back patrons you go to you go to patreon.com search for push back. You can also go to the pushthef ilm.com website and find out more. But Simon and Harriet in Norwich, UK, say we love your podcast. That's nice. The things you cover are so essential for people to hear. We love to hear investigations into the tomato industry in Spain and exploitation of the workers from North Africa there. Thank you for your work. It's actually a good story. I mean as I did...
Leilani Farha 29:46
You know it?
Fredrik Gertten 29:47
Oh yeah, I've been driving through that area and it's even though it's south of Spain is and it's driving through it's like it's a it's almost like driving through a refugee camp because it's only white plastic. All over the valley. And it's it's so much so much pesticides, it's like it's harmful for nature for workers. And of course they you're right, Simon and Harriet that this is a place where a lot of immigrants are working long hours for very little pay in a very harmful environment. So if you want to buy Spanish tomatoes don't buy them from, from that region.
Leilani Farha 30:29
We have that, you know, in the province in Canada where I live in the south of the province, we have tomato workers, they come from Mexico. And they have pretty terrible conditions. But in particular, I know about it because their housing conditions are terrible. And of course with COVID, there was a huge issue as to whether they'd be led in and then if they're led in, and they're living in these horrible, and I've seen this actually in so many countries I've been to migrant workers are often living in the worst conditions period.
Fredrik Gertten 31:02
It's I would say if you want to buy when you buy food, try to buy organic, and also grown in as close to home as possible. That's right. And if if it's if it has travelled far try to also include fair trade, which I think is really important. I know it's not as strong in Canada as it should be. But there is a fair trade Canada because I went there and, and showed my bananas film to them. And it's really cool people, so support them
Leilani Farha 31:31
in Maine, I will tell you, Fredrik, if you go to like a mainstream grocery store in my city, it's almost impossible to get a banana that's not made by dole. There's one fair trade place that distributes to one grocery area, it's an almost impossible.
Fredrik Gertten 31:50
So we have a message from another patron. He's Joe Dino from Tucson, Arizona. And he's active in the barrier neighbourhood coalition and the historic Fourth Avenue coalition in Tucson. And they're fighting displacement and gentrification in the city. And he says, I want to know more about how we convince all levels of government to get on board with making smart, sustainable development work for our communities. We are all battling the same problems and organisation so I'm happy to support those who are with us in the fight. And then he says, I'm very grateful for the work of Leilani, Fredrik and everyone involved. So what would you say to Joe?
Leilani Farha 32:33
I mean, my experience. Now it's maybe partially related to who I am and my reputation, etc. But I had such a good experience the past few months working with local governments as a beginning place in trying to combat some of these patterns of financialization and gentrification that can be bad. I found that just by having normal conversation about particularly with mayors about their vision of what they want their cities to be like, and how can they get there, and offering alternatives to the dominant narrative and dominant paradigms has really worked at least, as I said, my recent work here in Canada with 12 different cities, literally, in the span of three months, the conversation completely changed from one that began with everything's terrible. Homelessness is a nightmare. We can't solve anything, we just need money, money, money, to now a big call for embracing the human right to housing using a different paradigm trying to challenge the over commodification of housing. So that was in a three month period that these you know, decision makers really changed their approach. So I I think, begin with local government and begin with a conversation.
Fredrik Gertten 33:52
Cool. I would also say to Joe that cities around the world mayors and and groups like yours have been using push to to gather people to gather the city and to talk about the issue. And I think you should try to set up a screening of push and and and invite the mayor and invite his staff and you know, an architects and other cool people in the city and have an open debate about what's going on because I am sure when you see the film you will see that the pattern is very close to what also happens in your own town. I have also a note from tarjay hanken in Trondheim, Norway. And he is he's writing his master's thesis about the studentification of Trondheim because the studentification is threatening the housing market by effectively removing flats from the free market so like the students are grabbing up all the space you know when the universities are growing we saw the same in Sheffield remember the the luxury student condos for foreign students, so it's like it's, it's a we had we actually have made a full podcast on the student home. So listen to that. But he says he, he is a supporter of pushback talks in on Patreon. Because it's the potential of establishing contacts with other people who are interested in and working with issues connected to the housing market. Yes, good. through us you can also get context with other people. We will fight to find a way when maybe we should set up a Facebook group for all active people. So you also can talk to each other. We'll, we'll come back, see what will happen. We also have a friend in Miami, Florida, Mark Loss and he's been writing to us before he want us to make a special show about the amazing composer of Florencia Di Consilio. Consilio has made the music of Push. You can you hear her music in the end and opening off this show. Florencia she's an amazing person so we would love to involve her.
Leilani Farha 36:04
And I haven't I haven't met her. So I would love that. That would be great.
Fredrik Gertten 36:06
But you are in your bunker in Canada, you know?
Leilani Farha 36:11
Yeah, well, we can do a zoom and a pod with her.
Fredrik Gertten 36:16
Mark he's a patron and he says thanks, love and peace to the wg film family. I think that's a really nice ending note, isn't it? Peace of love, peace and love? Yeah, Leilani, we made it.
Leilani Farha 36:33
You always seem surprised.
Fredrik Gertten 36:36
Yeah. So but friends out there. Send us more ideas and feedback and tell your friends about the podcast. Watch the film. Yeah, share, help us whatever we do on social media. If you I mean, if you go to the pushthefilm.com There are also all the small videos we do for this podcast. You can grab them and send them to your friends there is a lot of if you want to be active. Please be we need friends. If you have mighty enemies, You need really good friends.
Leilani Farha 37:15
So true. So true. Until next time.
Fredrik Gertten 37:18
Until next have a nice walk in the rain. I've actually have still some ligth. It's been a beautiful day. Take care Leilani, it's always great to talk to you.
Mikey Jones 37:34
Pushback Talks is produced by WG film. support us by becoming a patreon, at patreon.com/pushbacktalks. Thank you so much for listening. And we'll see you again next week.