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
The Monster’s Grip – Amsterdam Under Siege
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This week, the Filmmaker and the Advocate are in conversation with Gert Jan Bakker of WOON. Amsterdam used to have strong rent control policies that protected tenants. But a neo-liberal government changed all that - selling off social housing stock to private corporations, and favoring landlords over tenants, and allowing rents to increase drastically. Apartments that once rented for 600 euros a month increased to over 2,000, driving people out of the city. The national government still believes the market will right all wrongs, but rents are going up with no sign of relief.
But national politics are not standing in the way of the City government's vision for Amsterdam. In a city of 900,000 with 4.5 million visitors every year, and with 1 in 15 dwellings in Amsterdam registered as short-term rentals, short-term rental accommodation, The Filmmaker and the Advocate discuss the city's push back against the short-term rentals industry. The city is fighting to regulate Air BnB to protect popular neighborhoods from being overrun with short-term rental properties, going so far as to ban Air BnB in central zones of the city. They are now litigating the matter - and to Gert's mind, it's one of many fights worth having. He's also preoccupied with the city struggle to preserve its way of life for local residents. Financialization has tightened its grip, with private corporations spending hundreds of millions of euros buying up thousands of properties. Amsterdam is truly under siege, but will it survive?
Produced by WG Film
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support - Maja Moberg