Lights, Camera, Take One Action

Take One Action delivers another shot in the arm to complacent cinema-goers and encourages its audience to take what it sees on the screen and ask themselves 'how can I use this information to enact change in my own life?'

Preview by Jamie Dunn | 04 Sep 2014

It may be hard to believe today, but major film festivals like Cannes and Edinburgh were once socially conscious arenas in which the various issues and injustices of the day were hashed out. But over the years celebrity has taken the place of politics, their principles diluted by flashing bulbs and red carpets. It’s been left to smaller, independent festivals to fight the good fight. Outfits like Take One Action (TOA), whose USP is to use the issues on screen as a jumping off point for debate and discussion. Its audiences, usually left to be voyeurs alone in the dark, are encouraged to be part of a communal experience, and ask themselves, ‘How can I take what I’ve seen from the world on the screen and use it to enact change in the world around me?’

For film-fans living in Scotland, who are due to take collective action with their countrymen on 18 September, the festival couldn’t be more timely. “The referendum debate has really engaged the public’s political imagination in Scotland,” says TOA’s artistic director Simon Bateson. “This year we’ve really focused on harnessing this – on putting the inspiration, empowerment and confidence to make change happen in the hands of our audience.”

As ever, TOA serves up an impressive menu of screenings and discussions. The festival opens on 19 Sep, the day following the referendum, with Everyday Rebellion, a documentary that shows nonviolent activism in action, from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the story of a Spanish neighbourhood that comes together to stop the bank from reclaiming one of its resident’s homes.

Protest runs through the festival’s programme. It’s the subject of the spirited We Are Many, which looks back at the public anger that formed when Bush and Blair took the US and the UK into an illegal war with Iraq in 2003. Combining archive footage of the largest mobilisation of ordinary people in history (it’s estimated that 36 million people around the world marched against war on 15 Feb, 2003) and talking head interviews, which range from weapons inspector Hans Blix to Noam Chomsky and the late Tony Benn, the film is a passionate celebration of the power of solidarity.

A new addition this year is a youth programme. TOA asked a group of socially active cinephiles between the ages of 16 and 26 to help curate this new strand. They’ve made some shrewd selections, including #chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator, which shows how a 19-year-old college freshman was instrumental in coordinating protestors on the ground in Syria, all from her laptop while living in suburban Chicago. There are also two great family screenings: Aunt Hilda!, a vibrant hand-drawn animation from France about one eccentric plant-lover's fight against an insidious corporation who have manufactured a GM super-plant that’s destroying all weaker species of flora; and Giraffada, an adventure story centred on a giraffe-obsessed Palestinian boy that also acts as a sly sendup of the absurdity of life behind the Separation Wall in the West Bank.

Political satire Ash and Money, which sounds from the programme like it’s the Estonian equivalent of The Thick of It, looks to be a another highlight. As does The Case Against 8, which chronicles the five-year campaign of the American Foundation for Equal Rights to have California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in 2008, overturned. A rare screening of Herbert J. Biberman’s 1954 miners’ strike drama Salt of the Earth, which was so inflammatory on its release that it was blacklisted for a decade, screens from 16mm and is followed by a discussion on the legacy of Scottish mining strikes and the role of women in the movement.

In fact, almost all of the screenings at TOA are followed by a ‘Beyond the Screen’ discussion. Light Fly Fly High, the story of a defiant young female boxer born outside of caste in India who fights poverty, sexism and classism, as well as opponents in the ring, is followed by a conversation with inspiring sportswomen. After Inequality for All, which charts the history of America’s rich/poor divide, representatives from Oxfam and Unison will be on hand to discuss the themes of the film. Binder 70, which follows an activist trying to protect huge areas of public land being auctioned for fossil fuel, is rounded off by a talk from Eco-Congregations and Stop Climate Chaos.

The don’t miss event at any TOA festival has to be its bike powered screenings. There are two on offer this year: Seed of Time and Once upon a Forest, both at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. The former deals with the world’s food security, the latter is concerned with celebrating the beauty of rainforests in the Amazon and Africa, but what the films are about is largely immaterial. The real joy of these screenings is that they demonstrate first hand the power of collaboration and solidarity, and wake us up to the energy that we take for granted in our everyday lives. In other words: these screenings are the embodiment of everything TOA strives to instil in its audience.

Take One Action runs 19 Sep to 4 Oct

See website for full listings:

http://takeoneaction.org.uk