Tag Archives: occupy cuny news

Are You With Me? (Louis Reyes Rivera 1945-2012)

Posted on March 27, 2012 by The Film Detective

[11 minutes, New York 2012]
In collaboration with Iva Rad

This is a follow up of The Time for Action is Now (Occupy CUNY)

The film explores the legacy of the 1969 takeover of City College for the current Occupy CUNY movement. This historical occupation was led by students of color and won open admissions.

The film is dedicated to freedom fighter Louis Reyes Rivera who passed away on March 3, 2012.

Rivera spoke to Students United for a Free CUNY at the AME Church in Harlem on October 27. His powerful words are inter cut with speeches by students from different universities (The New School, New York University and Hunter College) at Union Square as part of the Occupy Wall Street Day of Action on November 17, 2011.

At a stature of less than 5 feet, Rivera literally embodied with his loud, steady, luminous flow of prose-poetry that we, history’s little folks, could galvanize and transform any space we occupied.
Conor Tomás Reed

Louis Reyes Rivera, known as “the janitor of history,” is the type of person who we often allow to fall through the cracks of recorded “official” history, but whose memory is passed on through the African oral tradition.
Hank Wiliams

Documentation is a behavior I learned from him. Archive is a survival instinct he tried to teach us all.
Rich Villar

Learn more about the legacy of Louis Reyes Rivera:
Remembering Louis Reyes Rivera – The People’s Poet by Conor Tomás Reed

Learn more about the long …

Posted in visual traces | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

The Time for Action Is Now

Posted on October 28, 2011 by The Film Detective

Occupy Cuny #1

[8 minutes, New York 2011]
In collaboration with Iva Rad

Select Spanish subtitles

In 1969, a group of black and Puerto Rican students occupied City College demanding the integration of CUNY, which at the time had an overwhelmingly white student body. The occupation spread to other CUNY campuses, forcing the Board of Trustees to implement a ground-breaking new admissions policy.

Such occupations also occurred in the 1980s and 2000s.
It’s that time again.

As graduate Film students at Hunter College in New York, we’re very excited to see how the spreading Occupy Wall Street movement is giving new momentum to the militant protest culture of CUNY (City University, NYC).

We filmed the second General Assembly at Hunter College, and the first Occupy CUNY teach-in at Washington Square Park on October 21st, 2011.

During the last weeks, we learned how quickly small protest gatherings can turn into new social movements. This is a document about the struggle of students and adjunct faculty at Cuny.

This local struggle is part of an international student movement against neoliberal dictatorship. This is only the beginning. The time for action is now.

Article:
Let’s Make History Repeat Itself  by Alden Burke in The Hunter Envoy

Presentations:
Anthology Film Archive (NYC), CUFF 2012 – City University Film Festival (NYC)

Featured in:
European Platform for Progressive Politics, Free Speech TV, The Hunter Envoy, The Monthly Review, Occupy Cuny News

 

…

Posted in visual traces | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off