Catastroika - Greek Documentary (English subs) (2012)

Catastroika - Greek Documentary (English subs) (2012)

Note to viewers: This is an independent, third party documentary and only posted as informational. It has no direct connection to the movement or shares necessarily the same views.

It was at the beginning of 1989 when the French academic Jacques Rupnik sat at his desk, in order to prepare a report on the state of the economic reforms in Mikhail Gorbatsov's Soviet Union. The term that he used in describing the death rattle of the empire was "Catastroika". In Yeltsin's time, when Russia instituted maybe the biggest and least successful privatization experiment in the history of humanity, a group of Guardian reports assigned a different meaning to Rupnik's term. "Catastroika" became synonym of the country's complete destruction by market forces; the sell off of public property; and the steep deterioration of citizens' living standards. Now, Catastroika's unit of measurement was unemployment, social impoverishment, declining life expectancy, as well as the creation of a new cast of oligarchs, who took over the country's reins. A few years later, a similar effort to massively privatize public property in unified Germany (which is presented as a model for Greece) created millions of unemployed and some of the biggest scandals in European history.

It is this "Catastroika" that is coming soon to Greece; to "Europe's last Soviet Republic" as the MPs and the ministers of its former "socialist" government liked to call it. Catastroika is the logical aftermath and continuation of "Debtocracy". Therefore, the logical sequence of our first documentary, which examined the causes of the debt crisis in Greece and the European periphery as a whole.

On April 26, 2012 at 20:00 let's turn off the TV and turn to an alternative source of information. The creators of Debtocracy, a documentary viewed by millions of people around the world, present their new production, entitled CATASTROIKA, on the website www.catastroika.com.

The documentary uncovers the forthcoming results of the current sell-off of the Greek public assets, demanded in order to face the country's enormous sovereign debt. Turning to the examples of London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Rome, CATASTROIKA predicts what will happen, if the model imposed in these areas is imported in a country under international financial tutelage.

Slavoj Zizek, Naomi Klein, Luis Sepulveda, Ken Loach and Greg Palast talk about the austerity measures, the Greek government as well as the attack against Democracy on Europe, after the general spreading of the financial crisis. Academics and specialists like Dani Rodrik, Alex Callinicos, Ben Fine, Costas Douzinas, Dean Baker and Aditya Chakrabortty present unknown aspects of the privatization programs in Greece and abroad.

Just like Debtocracy, CATASTROIKA is co-produced by the public, which contributed both financially and with ideas to its creation. The documentary will be available free of charge, under creative commons license. High-resolution files will be available for TV and cinema broadcasts in various languages.

The journalists Aris Chatzistefanou and Katerina Kitidi are responsible for writing and directing the documentary, while Leonidas Vatikiotis undertook its scientific editing. Active Member and Ermis Georgiadis created the soundtrack of CATASTROIKA, while the editing was made by Aris Triantafyllou. Infowar Productions and Thanos Tsantas are responsible for producing the film.

For more information, please visit www.catastroika.com or contact us at +306945161147.

Specs:

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*** Miscellaneous ***
- Subtitle(s): English
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