ARENA SQUATTED

By means of material that was created in the Arena the film shows the squatting, the organization of collective work, the negotiations with the city and finally the demolition of the buildings. It calls to memory, how a generation had been politicized through their involvement in the Arena movement.



Video/Umatic/16mm - 77’ – b&w
1:1,33 - optical sound - OV german

Production Videogruppe Arena
(Josef Aichholzer, Ruth Beckermann, Franz Grafl)
Premiere May 1977, Action Kino, Vienna

The social and political innovations of the Arena Movement, over which no political party or left-wing group achieved significant influence, are revealed in the tight, analytical arrangement of the material, with the beautifully shabby aesthetics of the amateur video vividly conveying the distinct flair characteristic of the Arena.
Gustav Ernst, Arena

Arena Squatted is by far the best report that captures the prevailing mood at the time in the “tiny town with houses and lawns”, where the people were not allowed to stay because those who ought to have represented them in city hall sold them down the river.
Harald Irnberger, Extrablatt

 
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