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
Money, Money, Money – Living in an Era of Corruption + Kleptocratic Networks, A Conversation with Sarah Chayes
The Filmmaker and the Advocate take listeners of this episode of PUSHBACK Talks into the real world – one where $$ money $$ is the principle value and corruption and kleptocracy the means of acquisition. Few are better placed to expose the workings of corruption than Sarah Chayes – former NPR reporter, and senior adviser to government officials in the US Department of Defence, and author of three books including her most recent, On Corruption in America and What is at Stake.
Drawing on her experiences in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Honduras, Lebanon and beyond, Chayes reveals that contrary to media reporting, corruption is not about individuals or single acts. Rather, it operates through sophisticated networks that link together people from very different sectors of society, spanning governments and the private sector. These networks are flexible and exist through time, over decades, losing members along the way as protests and civil unrest require, and then gaining more members after each sacrifice. Network members bend and repurpose the institutions and agencies of government to make them serve the objectives of the network, rather than the public interest. The pivotal role of real estate in all of this is not lost on Chayes who notes a universal feature of these networks of corruption is the use of real estate as a vehicle.
So what’s at stake when kleptocracy and corruption are left unchallenged? Nothing less than democracy.
Produced by WG Film
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/pushbacktalks)