The Common Place Cinema presents…

Va va boom! Films & talks on urban riots in France & UK
4.30pm-11.30pm, Sunday 11 December
@The Common Place social centre

Sparked by the deaths of two young men of African descent after a police chase on 27 October, France witnessed three weeks of rioting: some 9000 cars were burned & 3000 people arrested. Yorkshire is no stranger to urban race riots. In 2001, the Bradford riots marked the 20th anniversary of the 1981 ‘uprisings’, which gripped Britain for 3 months, including Chapeltown in Leeds.

Are racism and poverty to blame for the existence of modern urban riots in two of the world’s richest countries? What can we do to support affected communities?

4.30pm Film footage on the recent French riots
5pm Talk by Naima Bouteldja, French-Algerian writer & activist
6.30pm Films footage and discussion on the Bradford & Leeds riots
7.30pm Film: The Battle of Algiers (1965) – Award-winning portrayal of the Algerian guerrilla struggle against French colonialism in the 1950s once banned in France
10pm Film: La Haine (1995) – Controversial film about life in les banlieues (‘the French suburbs’), famous for its representation of the police as violent, racist and uncomprehending, terrorizing the excluded and multi-ethnic suburban youth

*Special North African food will be served in the Common Place café
* The Common Place is 2 minutes walk from the Corn Exchange

The Common Place, 23-25 Wharf Street, Leeds City Centre
0845 345 7334 www.thecommonplace.org.uk

More dates for your radical diary at the Common Place:

Common Place Political Cinema - Dec 2005 to March 2006

From 5pm. Entry by donation.

December 11
Va va boom: films and talks on urban riots in France and Britain

December 18
No place called home. Homeless and homelessness in the UK

January 15
Radical working class struggle in Britain: a tribute. Films on groups who turned the world upside down throughout the ages: the Diggers, the Luddites, the Poll tax rioters.

January 29
Autonomous spaces and social centres: a new political movement. Films from a variety of countries about the rise and experiences of social centres. Followed by discussion on _creating a national social centres network_

February 12
The other Latin America. Films and talks on the movements and lives of people who live in those parts of Latin America we never really hear about: Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru.

February 26
Anti-corporate pranking and the laboratory of insurrectionary imagination. hopefully with guest speakers from urban pranksters the vacuum cleaner and my dads strip club

March 12
The Miners Strike on the day it began, 21 years ago. Films and talks on the strike.

March 26
A night of films from Agnes Varda - stylish French new wave cinema.