Tag Archives: Despite the Sun

The Truth Lies in Rostock and Despite the Sun at ASA14 Decennial: Anthropology and Enlightenment conference

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asa14_longScreening of the documentaries The Truth Lies in Rostock and Despite the Sun are schedule for the ASA14 Decennial: Anthropology and Enlightenment conference running on Saturday 21 June and Sunday 22 June in the city of Edinburgh.

Both films, Despite the Sun (1986), an investigation into the year-long dispute, which shook the print industry, and The Truth Lies in Rostock (1993), one of the rare documents about the riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in August 1992, will be shown on Saturday 21 as part of the film programme ‘The truth of memory and the fiction of history: the politics of representation at the interface of anthropology, art and film making’. Furthermore, there will be a third screening of Spectres (2011), a film essay by Sven Augustijnen that explains one of the darkest pages in the colonial history of the Belgian Congo, around 1960.

This film session focuses on recent anthropological works that have argued that standard anthropological accounts can be inadequate to engage with contemporary socio-economic and political transformations. In questioning standard ethnographic practices, anthropologists have started to explore the relationship between facts and fictions, between truth and representation, and between individual and collaborative or collective projects. These new strands at the convergence between art, anthropology, history, film making and literature raise important issues concerning the limits of the production and representation of anthropological knowledge. This session aims to engage with these debates by presenting three films that in different ways respond to many of the wider conference themes.

The screenings will be followed by a talk and discussion with Mark Saunders, film maker and director of Despite the Sun and co-director of The Truth Lies in Rostcok. All film sessions will take place in the Lecture Theatre of the Symposium Hall.

 

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Despite the Sun showing at Tate Liverpool

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Despite the Sun will be showing at Tate Liverpool’s exhibition ‘Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980’s Britain’, which is running from 28th February until 11th May 2014. The film investigates the state of the media and the context in which over 5,000 print workers, clerical staff, cleaners and secretaries lost their jobs. It was produced in 1986 by Despite TV, predecessor to Spectacle, both founded by Mark Saunders, documenting the dispute over Rupert Murdoch’s decision to relocate his printing operations from Fleet St to Wapping. There is also a new website dedicated to the strike where there is a lot of information.

“…Despite TV’s ‘Despite the Sun’… was shot on VHS at night, so it’s full of comma tails and smears and it was shot colour, but actually there was insufficient light, so it comes out as a greyscale, that’s I think one of the most gripping pieces of political documentary to be made in this country in the last 50 years, it’s a phenomenal piece of work. It was using the aesthetic of both the recording equipment and the playback, the immediate circulation for ‘Despite the Sun‘ were people in the immediate area of the dispute over moving the Murdoch group newspapers down to the Isle of Dogs and the famous picket lines. The BBC crews, which they interviewed, weren’t allowed through the police lines, but these guys were all locals, so they all went scooting round through people’s houses and so on to get stories that the national media weren’t getting, and it’s a fabulous piece of work, but it was designed to be shown locally and distributed through the library service in Tower Hamlets, so they were expecting domestic TV and VHS playback, so it was pretty raw, and also released very swiftly, I think they cut it in less than a week from about three weeks of shoots. So it was very important aesthetically as well as in terms of its politics.”

You can buy the DVD or read more here: Despite the Sun

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“Now I know – you know, we all know – that the fans were right.”

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With the recent revelation of the true events of the Hillsborough disaster, new accusations are flying…

‘So, former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie has instructed solicitors to demand an ‘apology and recompense’ from South Yorkshire Police over the newspaper’s discredited reporting of the Hillsborough disaster’ writes Granville Williams on the CPBF web site www.cpbf.org.uk . ‘It really is the most amazing cheek for him to portray himself as a ‘victim’. Disgusting in fact…’

 

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Despite the Sun is an investigation into one of Rupert Murdoch’s scandals back in 1986:

In January 1986, Rupert Murdoch moved his printing operation, News International, from Fleet St to Wapping in East London. Over 5,000 print workers, clerical staff, cleaners and secretaries were sacked in one day.

 

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Dial M for Murdoch- Book Launch

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This week saw the release of Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corporation of Britain, written jointly by Labour MP Tom Watson and The Independent’s Martin Hickman. The book was launched this morning at a press conference in which Watson called the Murdoch empire a “toxic institution that has operated in Britain like a shadow state”.  Predicted to be the “one of the most attacked books this year”, the title and publication date were kept a complete secret until Monday. Published by Penguin, the book is on sale for £20. Reviews say that the book gives a detailed and researched account of the phone hacking scandal just in time for Murdoch’s appearance at the Leveson inquiry next week.

See also Despite the Sun

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“News International Wapping dispute” exhibition opens in Liverpool

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The exhibition ‘News International Wapping – 25 Years on’ opens today in Liverpool marking 25 years since the sacking of 5,500 newspaper print workers during the bitter 1986 dispute between Rupert Murdoch and the print unions.

Occurring at a time when jobs, conditions and union organisation were being undermined in newspaper industry, it showcases the 13-month struggle the employees staged to try to save their jobs and protect their union rights.

Using the recent News of the World scandal as a poignant example of how corrupt newspapers can be and the damage they can cause, Paul Finegan, Unite’s regional secretary, stressed how important it was for Government to be aware “of the dramatic and negative impact on jobs that morally corrupt newspaper tycoons, working together with a government that are intent on reducing the rights of working people and their unions can have.”

When: From Monday, 19 to 30 September
Where: Unite, Jack Jones House, 2 Churchill Way, Liverpool L3 8EF

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Despite the Sun – Video Art, England’s Avant Garde, interview

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Despite TV’s film “Despite the Sun” has been featured in an interview with writer and academic Sean Cubitt. The interview is about the early days of video in the UK.

Sean Cubitt is currently Professor of Media and Communications, University of Melbourne and has written widely on the media arts.

“that’s I think one of the most gripping pieces of political documentary to be made in this country in the last 50 years, it’s a phenomenal piece of work.”
“they all went scooting round through people’s houses and so on to get stories that the national media weren’t getting, and it’s a fabulous piece of work”
“So it was very important aesthetically as well as in terms of its politics.”

you can watch Despite the Sun here: Despite the Sun

full article can be found here: Video Art article