Editor's Note:
Extended by Popular Demand! Rebellion in Atenco and Beyond: Dispatches From Rebel Mexico, FALL TOUR, 2003 A collection of films from the front lines of Mexican resistance featuring "Atenco: The Machete Rebellion" and other inspiring reports. Book your screening now!

As the economic situation of ordinary Mexicans deteriorates, local communities are organizing and fighting back. These struggles combine the rebel legacy of thinkers and fighters such as Emiliano Zapata with innovative contemporary philosophies and culture jamming tactics. From October to December 2003, Greg Berger will be touring universities and independent cultural centers with a collection of films that document these struggles. This tour is a continuation of the Spring 2002 "Machete Rebellion Tour" which toured over 12 states and 25 institutions.

There is no greater example of resistance to corporate globalization than the struggle of small farmers from San Salvador Atenco, Mexico, against a proposed international airport that would have been built over 95% of their communal farmland. In 2002, the farmers of Atenco took the streets, machetes in hand, to reestablish local control of land use policy. "Atenco: The Machete Rebellion" chronicles this struggle.

Additional works will include excerpts from "El Casino de la Selva," a video journal on a local fight against mega-store COSTCO's invasion of Emiliano Zapata's home state of Morelos, and "Gringothon 2003," a humorous portrait of a small group of American expatriates organizing against George W. Bush and the Iraq war with the help of Mexican solidarity.

Book the "Dispatches from Rebel Mexico" tour at your institution!

For rates and information, contact Greg Berger at:

gringoyo_2000@yahoo.com

Award winning filmmaker and curator Craig Baldwin said of the last tour:

"In a breath-taking cross-border initiative, Berger adroitly flips the paradigm of globalization, using the international communications potential of the simple cell phone to establish live real-time contact with Mexican activists trapped in a semi-feudal time-warp. So far, yet so close."

Atenco's Rebellion

Land, Yes! Airplanes, No!   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Adan Xicotencatl, Constantino Miranda, Greg Berger
Documentary   25 minutes   2002
With English subtitles
In 2001, the Mexican government unveiled an ambitious plan to build a huge, state-of-the-art new airport outside of Mexico City. Seen as a way to encourage international investment, the plan would also have destroyed enormous tracts of communal farmland in the areas where the airport and adjoining tourist facilities are to be built. At least five towns and tens of thousands of their inhabitants would have been affected, including the farming town of Atenco. Yet the people of Atenco took to the streets in protest. This documentary chronicles the first six months of resistance, as Atenco residents organize marches, pen protest songs, and curse the 2000 elections that brought president Vicente Fox to power. A textbook case of neo-liberal policy taking precedent over democracy, the conflict is also an inspirational example of popular organizing against the more nefarious elements of globalization.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95


Atenco:The Machete Rebellion!   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Greg Berger, Adan Xicohtencatl and Constantino Miranda
Documentary   30 minutes   2002
With English subtitles
Details the evolution of the town's struggle into a national, and eventually international movement. During the struggle, the residents of Atenco declared their municipality an autonomous zone, asserting their right to control local affairs such as health care, education, resource management, and in the execution of democratic elections. After a resounding victory, residents reflect on the meaning of their victory for themselves and for the world.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95

Other Documentaries by Greg Berger

They Shine... On Being Gay in Morelos, Mexico   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Greg Berger
Documentary   13 minutes   2002
With English subtitles
To be poor in Mexico is hard. To be poor in a small town in Mexico is harder. If you're a gay man living in those circumstances, things can get downright tricky. This collectively-produced documentary introduces us to four gay men in Mazatepec, Morelos, who recount their life passions and their everyday complaints. They describe their occasional relationships with men in town who consider themselves "straight," and give free reign to their creative impulses at the town's yearly festival, the Mojiganga, where sexual identities are publicly, playfully transgressed.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95


We're Still Here   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Greg Berger
Documentary   30 minutes   2001
With English subtitles
A lively and highly informative look at the human mismanagement that has made Mexico City a magnet for "natural" disasters. Narrated by a wise-cracking skeleton, the video shows how millions of “chilangos” (Mexico City residents) live under the constant threat of floods, gas explosions, and disasters like the 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000, which loom threateningly on the Mexico City horizon like the active volcano Popocatéptl. But, as the video tells us, “the problem is not Popo, but poo-poo” – less dramatic but equally deadly problems like blocked sewage, shoddy construction, and inadequate engineering that could at any rainstorm cause avalanches in the poor neighborhoods that ring the hills surrounding the city. These latter problems are not dealt with by a government which funds high-profile programs like seismology even as it ignores the more problems that effect millions of citizens everyday. Using file footage from past disasters and interviews with scientists, anthropologists, engineers, community activists, and regular folks, the video convincingly ties the lack of effective disaster prevention to state paternalism and government demagoguery, pointing out that the most effective policies have been made by concerned community members. Instead of putting the community at the mercy of an arrogant and mismanaged government, it says, the state should make itself available to its citizens, reversing the power dynamic in the city and allowing those who know the dangers best and are affected the most to build the necessary infrastructure and awareness.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95


Water Willies in the Global Village   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Greg Berger
Documentary   30 minutes   2000
With English subtitles
Welcome to Tejalpa, Mexico in the year 2000. It's one weird and dislocated place! This ancient Indian town has kept many of its traditions alive, including the fiesta celebrated each year on October 18th. On this day the very best of the year's agricultural harvest is offered to the spirits of the town's main spring and aquifier. The annual tradition survives despite a rapid process of suburban sprawl and less-than-responsible development, which pollutes the same water that is worshipped every year! Even the town's ecological reserve is not safe, invaded by landless squatters enticed by urban political bosses and unscrupulous developers. Using a mish mosh of aesthetics as diverse as the present day population of Tejalpa, the film demonstrates the clashes of modernity, tradition, communal stability, land disputes and ecological crisis that exist in the town of Tejalpa. It was produced with the help of various local civic organizations and NGOs and was made especially for the town's inhabitants, as a catalyst for debate on the town's future. But in this special version for international audiences, the film provides a bizarre visual perspective on the globalization debate, highlighting the real human cost of unregulated development.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95

Other Featured Titles

• Discounts on LAVA's Spring Titles (May 2004)
  
• The Latin American Cities Collection (May 2004)
  
• Asian Diaspora (April 2004)
  
• New Release (April 2004)
  
• Jewish Studies (April 2004)
  
• Classic Latin American Cinema (March 2004)
  
• Women's Studies (February 2004)
  
• Satire and Symbolism (February 2004)
  
• New Releases (January 2004)
  
• Discounts on LAVA's Fall Titles (December 2003)
  
• The Vision of Manuel Antin (November 2003)
  
• Now Available on DVD (November 2003)
  
• New Documentaries (October 2003)
  
• Recent Chilean Cinema (October 2003)
  
• The Work of Daniel Burman (September 2003)
  
• Fernando Birri's 'Los inundados' (September 2003)
  
• The Overthrow of Allende (September 2003)
  
• The Sixth Section (August 2003)
  
• Fall Tour: Dispatches from Rebel Mexico (August 2003)
  
• New Documentary (May 2003)
  
• A Tribute to Fernando Birri (May 2003)
  
• Documentaries on the Arts (May 2003)
  
• Documentaries on Music (May 2003)
  
• Crisis in Argentina (April 2003)
  
• Video in the Villages (April 2003)
  
• New Releases (March 2003)
  
• New Feature Films (March 2003)
  
• The Work of Rafael Rebollar (February 2003)
  
• Mexican Documentaries (February 2003)
  
• Landscapes of Memory (February 2003)
  
• New Documentaries-January 2003 (January 2003)
  
• New Films from Colombia (November 2002)
  
• New Chilean Documentaries (October 2002)
  
• New Mexican Documentaries (October 2002)
  
• Contemporary Cuba (October 2002)
  
• New Feature Films from Argentina (September 2002)
  
• The Pinochet Case (September 2002)
  
• Revisiting Central America (May 2002)
  
• Globalization and its Discontents (April 2002)
  
• New Documentaries (April 2002)
  
• Indigenous Video from Brazil (February 2002)
  
• Documentaries from LAVA (February 2002)
  
• New Feature Films from LAVA (November 2001)
  
• New Documentaries from LAVA (October 2001)
  
• Work from Colombia and Ecuador (October 2001)
  
• New Releases from LAVA, Fall 2001 (September 2001)
  
• New Releases (May 2001)
  
• Work from Peru (April 2001)
  
• New Releases from Brazil (March 2001)
  
• THE LATIN AMERICAN VIDEO ARCHIVES (February 2001)
  
• Cuba's Independent Video Movement (November 2000)
  
• This Month's Featured Artist (November 2000)
  
• New Tiles at LAVA October, 2000 (October 2000)
  
• Featured Titles at LAVA, Fall 2000 (September 2000)
  
• New Release of Mexican Feature Films (September 2000)
  
• New Titles at LAVA - April 2000 (April 2000)
  
• New Titles at LAVA (March 2000)
  
• New Titles At LAVA (February 2000)
  
• Puerto Rico (November 1999)
  
• Exclusive Release (November 1999)
  
• Two New Titles Directed Betty Kaplan (October 1999)
  
• Eva Peron Has Arrived (October 1999)
  
• LAVA's Featured Titles for September (September 1999)
  
• Latin American Civilization (September 1999)
  
• For Teachers By Teachers (January 1999)
  
• Brazilian Indigenous Community Video (November 1998)
  
• Welcome Back (September 1998)
  
• What's New (May 1998)
  
• Films Based on Books (February 1998)
  
• MoMA Presents Thorn of the Mountain (January 1998)
  
• CUBAN FEATURE FILMS AND DOCUMENTARIES (November 1997)
  
• VIDEO BY AND ABOUT INDIGENOUS PEOPLES (October 1997)