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
Exiting the Domain of Money - A Conversation with Saskia Sassen
A special episode of PUSHBACK Talks! The Filmmaker and The Advocate reconnect with Saskia Sassen, prominent Professor of sociology at Columbia University, one of the world’s most important thinkers on cities, and a central character in PUSH-The film. The trio continue the conversation about why so many people can't afford their homes any longer. Going to the heart of the matter they unpack Saskia’s powerful analysis that finance – which now dominates residential real estate – is an extractive sector, like mining. Once finance has extracted what it needs it moves on without a care for what's left behind. The conversation turns to a deep probing of the meaning and relevance of “money”. When money is used by institutional investors to create new financial instruments, or to leverage more capital is it still "money" as we know it or have we exited the domain of money? The co-hosts wrap up by querying where the uber commodification of housing is going. Have we entered a new epoch where familiar rules and systems that might regulate financialization are thrown out? Will financialization eat itself up? Or will people who are pushing back force change?
Produced by WG Film
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson, Maja Moberg & Melinda Bergstrand