As a part of encouraging solidarity and links between different campaigns
for common struggle against capitalism in Britain and Latin America, we are
having a screening on gentrification in Britain followed by a discussion.


on Thursday 19 April at 8pm

at the rampART Social Centre

5 Rampart St London E1 (off Commercial Road,)
nearest tube Whitechapel, buses 25, 254, 15, 115
directions:  http://rampart.xploiting.org/wiki/doku.php/how_to_find_us



1) “Regeneration Game” a documentary by Mike Lane, 2006, 75min.

We live in a city that has the standards of poor countries in many of its neighbourhoods. In this day and age that is something totally unacceptable.

This documentary film is about ordinary people who had their lives adversely affected by the policies of our civic leaders at the Liverpool City Council, various local and central government agencies and rich property developers. It is also about people and how they empower themselves, how they stood up and said no, about local democracy or the lack of it.

“Regeneration Game” shows how the Liverpool City Council, housing associations, property developers and various central government agencies; with the help of the local media, actively strive to impose their agendas onto local liverpudlian communities. According to many informed people, the local media would bend over backwards to promote regeneration, arguing that nothing that could harm the long-term existence of regeneration funding in Liverpool should be said or done. It matters little to them whether poverty or social exclusion and all the negative by-products of regeneration are still in abundance in our poor communities. Community activists always knew that regeneration funding would be redirected away from the poor areas and put into the pockets of the rich.


* Mike Lane is a filmmaker and activist based in Liverpool



2) The Battle of Broadway Market, a documentary by Emily James, 2006, 60 min.

At the end of November 2005 an occupation was started by local residents at 34 Broadway Market to prevent it being knocked down for luxury flats. Over the next few months support multiplied and the news travelled around the world. It's a story that brings in corrupt property developers, an incompetent council, rampant gentrification and the question of just what sort of community we want in 21st century London.