PUSHBACK Talks
Landlords without faces, apartments without tenants. In 2019, filmmaker Fredrik Gertten released Push, an award-winning documentary that explores the unaffordable, unlivable city, and the growing global housing crisis. Following the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha, the film sought to understand why cities around the world are becoming increasingly expensive.
In June of 2020, Fredrik and Leilani teamed up again to continue the conversation they began with the film, and PUSHBACK Talks was born. Since then, PUSHBACK Talks has grown into an exploration of the social, political, and economic forces that shape our world, and of the actions people are taking to push back against inequality, corruption, authoritarian systems, poverty, war, and the shift towards far-right conservatism.
Join the Filmmaker (Gertten) and the Advocate (Farha) as they dissect these topics, uncover the connections between them, and search for solutions. How can we, as individuals, movements, and communities, fight back – push back – to build societies where every human being has the right to live equally, freely, and with dignity?
Listen to PUSHBACK Talks and join the conversation for a better, fairer world.
For more about PUSH and to view it: www.pushthefilm.com
For more about Leilani Farha and her organization, The Shift: www.make-the-shift.org
For more about Fredrik Gertten and his other films: www.wgfilm.com
If you are interested in watching his newest documentary: www.breakingsocialfilm.com
PUSHBACK Talks
Cheap debt! Low Taxes! Ireland for Sale
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This week, Dublin’s Rory Hearne – author, podcaster, housing campaigner and university lecturer – joins the Filmmaker and The Advocate to explore how big capital came to dominate such a small nation.
The impact of the Global Financial Crisis in ’08 was particularly severe in Ireland, triggering a recession, a huge drop in GDP, high unemployment, and housing precarity. The government’s response was to save the banks by selling off foreclosed mortgages – of which there were many - to hedge funds and global private equity firms. Since then, these actors have dominated the housing sector, lured in by Ireland’s “tax haven” status. In the last year, 95% of new apartments built in Ireland were purchased by institutional financial actors. The impact of all of this? Rental housing costs have skyrocketed and have become unaffordable, young adults are stuck at home living with their parents, and family and child homelessness has become entrenched.
But we couldn’t end the conversation there. Rory picks up on our 2021 challenge to provide listeners with inspiration, detailing the actions and campaigns underway to pushback: grassroots campaigns against the selling-off of public lands, the emergence of a new tenants union, and growing energy to have the right to housing included in Ireland’s Constitution.
Rory Hearne is the author of Housing Shock – The Irish Housing Crisis and How to Solve It and the co-host of Reboot Republic.