Media Decompression Collective is more than just a film festival or a spectator event. The purpose of the project is to bring people together to celebrate our similarities, and differences; to educate each other.
Everyone interested is encouraged to be involved in every aspect of our events. The influences of our collective in Toledo, Ohio goes back to the beginnings of media decompression from 1996, In San Francisco, California where spaz sound system was helping to create the Autonomous Mutant Festival. A seven day free festival, a semi permanent autonomous village. A festival loosely planned that naturally develops from the people attending/participating.
Taking from the experience, 7 years later three unnamed people (with much help from the community) decided to do a bi-weekly community culture project called Media Decompression. In Berlin Germany. working with the many open-minded filmmakers, musicians, and artists together they created a syndicate of unrestricted creative energies. |
The above image is the original MDC logo
designed by MDC member Dennis Hampton.
The logo appeared in all MDC publications and
graced the cover of the Take Back Democracy
Film Festival film guide and postcards in 2004. |
Archive Screenings
Archive Screenings for
Take Back Democracy Film Festival
Venue locations: click here
See schedule below or download a screenings schedule(requires Adobe Acrobat): schedule. Download Acrobat Reader here.
July 22, 7 pm
Location: Lourdes College/Franciscan Center
"Voices From The Movement" 53 min
"Fascists Are Trading Away America" 45 min
Films by Roger Hill who will be present to introduce the films.
"March For Women's Lives" short
"Boycott Taco Bell" short
Voices From the Movement brings the viewer to the front lines of the U.S Anti-War Movement. Shot over a year-long period, Voices combines the heartfelt statements of a mis-represented focus group, with expert testimony from former Chief UN Weapons inspector Scott Ritter, among others. This film aims to give voice to those people who took to the streets to oppose the Bush Administration's war on Iraq. Director and Producer Roger Hill was arrested twice while shooting this film. Voices From the Movement bares witness to the passion of protestors in New York City, Dover Delaware, Washington D.C, San Francisco CA, Kent State Ohio, and Athens Ohio. Power to the People. Fascists are Trading Away America: a shockingly violent film about police repression during the Free Trade area of the Americas summit in Miami FL.
July 29, 7 pm
Location: Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 50 Union Hall "Unprecedented: The 2000 Election" 48 min.
Directed and Produced by Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler.
This is a riveting account of the 2000 election in Florida. A disturbing picture is painted of an election marred by suspicious irregularities, electoral injustices, and sinister voter purges in a state governed by the winning candidate's brother. A new updated version, featuring Danny Glover, discusses the potential for voter fraud in November 2004, with the widespread use of computerized touch screen voting machines which do not produce a paper receipt.
July 31, 7 pm
Location: The Event Center
"AfterMath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11" 35min Produced by GNN (Guerilla News Network)
"Ammo For The Info Warrior" 40 min.
Produced by GNN
In this investigative documentary, Former Inspector General of the Dept. of Transportation and attorney Mary Schiavo, UC, Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott, author and professor Michel Chossudovsky, From the Wilderness' Mike Ruppert, and author Nafeez Ahmed, among others, raise critical, unresolved questions surrounding the tragedy of September 11. Aftermath investigates the troubling span of issues that have arisen since the attacks, including: the negligence of military officials in immediately reacting to the hijackings, proven links between the hijackers, Pakistani intelligence (ISI) and the CIA, the role of oil in the Eurasian conflict and, finally, the impact of post-911 legislation on American civil liberties. Ammo for the Info-Warrior features nine of GNNs most compelling news videos covering a range of stories, from the violent diamond trade in Sierra Leone to the PR industry's manipulation of public opinion to slam poetry about the business of hip-hop.
August 5, 7 pm
Location: Happy Badger Trading Portal "A Night of Ferocious Joy" 60 min
Directed by David Zeiger.
On May 12, 2002, before an audience of 1,800 people in the legendary Palace theater in Los Angeles, a disparate group of hip hop, latin funk, spoken word and visual artists created the first anti-war concert in the new millennium called ArtSpeaks! Not in Our Name. This concert film captures the energy and feel of what happened that night.
"Let My Country Awake" 50 min.
Directed and Produced by Deb Huston and Janet Fuchs
Let My Country Awake is an intimate and moving portrait of American opposition to the 2003 war on Iraq. Featuring prominent members of Congress, political activists, celebrities and concerned citizens, this film reveals dramatic predictions of consequences now being felt as a result of the Bush administration's rush to war.
August 6, dark
Location: International Park (in the Gazebo) downtown Toledo
"Downwind: Depleted Uranium Weapons in the age of Virtual War" 50 min.
Screened as part of Hiroshima Day commemoration 6pm at directed by Jawad Metni
Downwind documents the use of depleted Uranium tank penetrators and their relation to Gulf War syndrome. They are placed in the context of nuclear testing in America and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
August 12, 6 pm
Location: Downtown Latte Coffee Shop
"The Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" 60 min
Directed and Produced by Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brophy
On August 2nd, 1990, Saddam Hussein launched his troops against Kuwait, triggering the first major international crisis of the post-Soviet Union era. But was this invasion a surprise in the first place? Were all diplomatic means really utilized to try to resolve the issue peacefully? Was there any threat from the part of Iraq against Saudi Arabia or against any of the other Gulf states? Why wasn't Washington's rhetoric against Saddam ever matched by any real support to the Iraqi opposition groups? What purpose can the embargo over Iraq serve if it is not to weaken Saddam Hussein, a result it has evidently failed to achieve to this day? What is true behind this mysterious "Gulf War Syndrome" that goes on affecting hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans and local populations and more and more of them every day?
August 16, 7:45pm
Location: Mickey Finn's Pub
"Empire and Oil" 30 min
Coordinator: Brian Drolet & Satya Colombo
Modern empires run on oil, and controlling these resources is key to the control and penetration of potential rivals. This program will examine the recent history of the Middle East and the Iraq War in relation to the desire of Western powers to control the flow of oil and geopolitical control. Includes segments from: Tariq Alis speech at Judson Church, Feb. 2004; interview with Larry Everest at Revolution Books, author of Oil, Power and Empire; interview with Hamid Dabaschi; animated History of Iraq by Alex Rivera et al.
"Globalization at Gunpoint: The Economics of Occupation" 30 min.
Directed by Kareem Farooq
This film explores the economics behnd the occupation of Iraq: how Halliburton is privatizing not only the Iraqi infrastructure, but the US military.
"Erasing Memory: The Cultural Destruction of Iraq" 30 min
Coordinators: Suzy Salamy
We had to destroy the city in order to save it. A look at the effects of war on civilian populations and the destruction of history, i.e., the looting of the museums and libraries. Interview with David Gimbel, archeologist on the destruction of ancient sites.
Actions by artists in a draw-in at the Assyrian Galleries at the Met. By Visuals of Iraqi art destroyed and looted in the invasion. Drawings and a poem (by Elsa First) from the Draw-In at the Assyrian Galleries of the Metropolitain Museum protesting the bombing of Iraq with music by Badawi.
"The Real Face of the Occupation" 30 min.
Coordinator: Brandon Jourdan, Jacquie Soohen, Chris Belcher
How has Iraq changed since the fall of Saddam? What is life like under occupation? This program will show the humiliation of many there. Video from Iraq shot by Urban Hamid of house invasion and arrest of old man.
"Resistance at Home" 30 min.
Compiled by Jeff Taylor of Whispered Media and Asaf Zulah of Video Activist Network
This program looks at the resistance movement on a local level: Eric Hiltner's video, Labor Against War;
Brandan Jourdan, North Carolina activist, on artists resistance. Segment from Scenes from An Endless War by Norman Cowie
August 20, 7pm
Location: People Called Women
"Standing With The Women of Iraq: Women and the Movement (How the war affects the lives of women)" 30 min.
Have women in the military made a difference? This might include an examination of the historical connections between the women’s suffragist movements and pacifisms. How does the skewing of the federal budget toward war affect the daily life of women in the U.S.? Excerpts from Code Pink and Women in Black demonstrations.
"The Art of Resistance" 30 min.
Coordinators: Molly Fink, Persheng Vaziri, Larilyn Sanchez
Dissent amongst people in all areas of art and culture were a huge part of the dissent in this moment. From Michael Moore and others at the Oscars, Sheryl Crow on the Today Show and the Grammies, to the Not In Our Name statement of conscience, many artists have weighed in inspiring many and helping others find the ways and courage to act. This video includes: Interview with Mary Frank, artist who helped to make a tribute to Picasso’s Guernica; Poems Not Fit for the White House, the public reading set up when Laura Bush dis-invited poets as being too dangerous; Lee Burics interview with Michael Franti of Spearhead about musicians who resist the war, and much more.
"Independent Media In A Time of War" 30 min.
Produced by Hudson Mokawk Independent Media Center
Part scathing critique, part call to action, this documentary argues that dialogue is vital to a healthy democracy. Independent media has a crucial responsibility to go where the silence is, according to narrator Amy Goodman, the host of Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now". She makes a compelling argument that the news media failed to represent the true face of war, and criticizes the phenomenon of embedded reporters, which resulted in a pro-military bias in the U.S. media, stifling the voices of independent reporters in Iraq.
August 24, 7pm
Location: Brewed Awakenings coffee shop
"Dance of Death: The Plight of U.S. soldiers in Iraq" 30 min.
Coordinator: Mark Read
The military as a job: what are the risks, benefits and psychological results? The video presents combat veterans and their families who speak out against the war. Segment from Military Myths, by the War Resisters League and Paper Tiger TV
"Channels of War: the Media is the Military" 30 min
Coordinators: Matt Pascarella and DeeDee Halleck.
Have the mainstream television networks fanned the flames of war, and have they profited from doing so? Has the process of embedded reporters (in-bed?) changed the way the war is reported? How does coverage in the US differ from international reports?
"National Insecurities: Stripping of civil liberties, illegal detentions" 30 min.
Coordinator: Jason da Silva
Violence against immigrants, imprisonment without trial: is fear inflaming racial and class divisions? The film looks at budget cuts affecting social services, health care, and education and ask who is really paying for the war. Interview with a former detainee Includes segment on attack on Middle Eastern family in DC area by Liz Canner, Somali store keepers in Seattle who were targeted after 9/11, and more.
"The World Says No To War" 30 min.
Coordinator: Pedro Valiente, Georgina Americh, and Lucilla Moctezuma, DeeDee Halleck
February 15, 2003 was the first time that the worlds peoples came together to speak out against war. What were some of the creative reactions to militarism, imperialism and corporate globalization across the world? How does the fight against corporate globalism connect with the actions in the Middle East? Anti-war activists speak out across the globe.
August 31, 7pm
Location: Original Sub Shop
"Before You Don't Vote" 24 min.
Directed and Produced by Larry Litt and Eleanor Heartney
A critical video interviewing over 50 politically involved Americans you won't meet everyday. From widely diverse backgrounds, they comment on our democracy's past, present and future. It offers realistic advice about why we should participate even though politics and politicians are not what we want them to be.
"Invisible Ballots" 58 min.
Directed and Produced by William Gazecki
This is an in-depth expose on the current rise of the all-electronic computerized voting. Underneath the radar of public scrutiny, dubious election officials and zealous voting machine manufacturers are putting into service tens of thousands of touch screen voting machines that cannot be relied upon for accuracy or reliability in real elections. Voting is swiftly coming under the control of private corporations using secret software with little or no state or federal oversight. The history of these companies and the people who own them are rife with corruption and insider alliances. Mysterious unpredictable election upsets are increasing, and verified recounts are impossible.
September 7, at dark
Location: Outdoor screening at the Lot on 500 Block of Winthrop St.
"Baraka" 90 min
Directed by Ron Fricke
Named after a Sufi word that translates roughly as "breath of life" or "blessing," this video is an impressive follow-up to Godfrey Reggio's non-verbal documentary film Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was cinematographer and collaborator on Reggio's film, and for Baraka he struck out on his own to polish and expand the photographic techniques used on Koyaanisqatsi. The result is a tour-de-force in 70mm: a cinematic "guided meditation" (Fricke's own description) shot in 24 countries on six continents over a 14-month period that unites religious ritual, the phenomena of nature, and man's own destructive powers into a web of moving images.
September 10, at dark
Location: Outdoor screening at The Old West End Commons corner of Bancroft and Robinwood in the Old West End
"What America Needs" 90 min
Directed and Produced by Mark Wojahn
Traveling by train from N.Y.C. to Los Angeles post 9/11, a documentary filmmaker asks more than 500 people from dozens of different communities across America "What Do You Think America Needs?" The sincerity and thoughtfulness with which people responded makes this film a thought-provoking look at who Americans are and what they instinctively know. Collectively, their answers relate an unexpected story of hope.
Film maker Mark Wojahn will be there to introduce the film and lead a discussion.
September 16, 7pm
Location: St. Thomas More Parish
"Trouble In Paradise" 73 min
Directed and Produced by Laurel Greenberg
This documentary presents a real-life drama of Election 2000 and 2002 within the chaotic landscape of Florida politics. It follows a diverse group of Floridians who, compelled by a sense of civic responsibility after the election debacle of 2000, become centrally involved in political issues. They volunteer on campaigns, run for office and sue the state, all while revisiting the unanswered questions of the historic election which changed their lives.
September 21, 7pm
Location: Central United Methodist Church
"The Carlyle Connection" 49 min.
VPRO TV, The Netherlands Directer: Shu Chen Tan
This is an in-depth study of the Carlyle Group, one of the largest private investment banks in the world which has accumulated its capital mainly through investments in the defense industry. Their senior advisors include George H.W. Bush and James Baker ,III and their investors include the Saudi Royal family and the Bin Laden family. The activities of this powerful company are revealed as the documentary explores the fine line between conflict of interest and a new way of doing global business.
September 27, 7:45pm
Location: Mickey Finn's Pub
"The Oil Factor behind the War on Terror" 60 min.
Directed and Produced by Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brophy
In 2004, three years into President Bush's "war-on-terror", is the world a safer place than it was in the Summer of 2001? The war in Afghanistan has turned into a bloody quagmire, the real Iraq war has now begun and thousands of people are poised to carry out the resistance to occupation and fight against Western colonialist interests around the world.
When all of Bush's pro-war arguments have been proven wrong, is it a coincidence that Iraq sits on the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world? Is it also a coincidence that Afghanistan is key to controlling the oil reserves of Central Asia at a time when the world's oil is dwindling?
"The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror" examines the link between oil interests and current U.S. military interventions. It includes original footage shot over a four-month period in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as many interviews with a large array of personalities including Bush administration officials. The documentary explores the various underlying motives behind George Bush's so-called "war-on-terror" and offers insights as to why global terrorism is thriving and why the world is becoming a more and more unsafe place. "The Oil Factor" also makes a clear assessment of today's global oil situation with sky-rocketing consumption and declining production.
"Breaking The Silence" 60 min. Directed by Steve Connelly and John Pilger. Produced by Christopher Martin
Award-winning journalist John Pilger investigates the discrepancies between American and British claims for the 'war on terror' and the facts on the ground as he finds them in Afghanistan and Washington, DC.
In 2001, as the bombs began to drop, George W. Bush promised Afghanistan "the generosity of America and its allies". Now, the familiar old warlords are regaining power, religious fundamentalism is renewing its grip and military skirmishes continue routinely. In "liberated" Afghanistan, America has its military base and pipeline access, while the people have the warlords who are, says one woman, "in many ways worse than the Taliban".
In Washington, Pilger conducts a series of remarkable interviews with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and leading Administration officials such as Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. These people, and the other architects of the Project for the New American Century, were dismissed as 'the crazies' by the first Bush Administration in the early 90s when they first presented their ideas for pre-emptive strikes and world domination.
Pilger also interviews presidential candidate General Wesley Clark, and former intelligence officers, all the while raising searching questions about the real motives for the 'war on terror'.
While President Bush refers to the US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq as two 'great victories', Pilger asks the question - victories over whom, and for what purpose? Pilger describes Afghanistan as a country "more devastated than anything I have seen since Pol Pot's Cambodia". He finds that Al-Qaida has not been defeated and that the Taliban is re-emerging. And of the "victory" in Iraq, he asks: "Is this Bush's Vietnam?"
October 5, 7pm
Location: First Unitarian Church
"Liberty Bound" 90 min.
Produced & directed by Christine Rose
Through original footage, archived footage, and interviews with people such as Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, and Michael Ruppert, Liberty Bound explores the state of the union and its ostensible move toward fascism. Rose talks with people who have been interrogated by the Secret Service and threatened with arrest for doing such benign things as sending an email, turning around during a Bush speech, and having a philosophical discussion on a train. Rose also explores the unanswered questions surrounding the attacks of 9/11, and she takes a closer look at the timeline of that terrible day. She examines the US Governments reasons for going to war with Afghanistan and Iraq.
October 9, 2 pm
Location: Kent Branch Library
"Peace, Propaganda & Promised Land" 80 min.
Director: Bathsheba Ratzkoff & Sut Jhally
This pivotal video exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites working in combination with Israeli public relations strategies exercise a powerful influence over news reporting about the Middle East conflict. Combining American and British TV news clips with observations of analysts, journalists, and political activists, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides an historical overview, a striking media comparison, and an examination of factors that have distorted U.S. media coverage and, in turn, American public opinion.
October 15, 7pm
Location: Original Sub Shop
"BROTHERS & OTHERS: The Impact of September 11th on Arabs, Muslims and South Asians in America" 54 min.
The Impact of September 11th on Arabs, Muslims and South Asians in America. The atrocities witnessed by the world on September 11th were hateful acts by terrorists who chose to view their victims not as people but as symbols of a perceived evil. Is America perpetuating the cycle of hate and ignorance which claimed so many innocent lives by jailing thousands of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians without evidence or due process?
"On Power, Dissent and Racism - A conversation with NOAM CHOMSKY" 50 min.
Director: Nicolas Rossier
The video features interviews with such experts as Noam Chomsky and James Zogby. Brothers and Others is a one-hour documentary on the impact of 9/11 on Muslims and Arabs in America. The film follows a number of immigrants and Americans as they struggle in the heightened climate of hate, FBI and INS investigations, and economic hardships that erupted following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
October 20 7 pm
Location: Sanger Branch Library
"Jenin, Jenin" 54 min
Director: Mohammed Bakri Winner: Best Film, Carthage International Film Festival
"Where is God," an elderly man desperately wonders when surveying the debris in the Palestinian refugee camp Jenin. The film, directed and co-produced by Palestinian actor and director Mohammed Bakri, includes testimony from Jenin residents after the Israeli army's Defensive Wall operation, during which the city and camp were the scenes of fierce fighting. The operation ended with Jenin flattened and scores of Palestinians dead. Palestinians as well as numerous human rights groups accused Israel of committing war crimes in the April 2002 attack on the refugee camp. The sad question forces itself on the spectator. What will become of a country, a people when its children are confronted with war and violence from a very early age? Banned in Israel, "Jenin Jenin" is dedicated to Iyad Samudi, the producer of the film, who returned home to Yamun after the shooting of the film was completed. On June 23, as Israeli forces besieged Yamun, Samudi was shot and killed as he was leaving a military-closed area with three friends..
October 29, 7pm
Location: Ohio Theatre
"Rana"s Wedding" 90 min.
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Shooting on location in East Jerusalem, Ramallah and at checkpoints in-between sees the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the eyes of a young woman who, with only ten hours to marry, must negotiate her way around roadblocks, soldiers, stone throwers, overworked officials. . .and into the heart of an elusive lover. This timely feature that explores love among the ruins of an occupied territory was presented with the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival"s 2003 Nestor Almendros Prize for courage in filmmaking. According to Abu-Assad, "When the abnormalities of barriers and occupation become an everyday reality, normal things like love and marriage turn into fiction. This is life in Palestine right now. I wanted to challenge it through cinema."
Archive Screenings for
Sept. 27, 2004
Screening of "Change is in the Air," a powerful documentary about the 2003 changes made to the Toledo Clean Indoor Air Act that effectively put tougher smoking restrictions on area bars and restaurants.
Where: Central United Methodist Church, 701 W. Central, Toledo, OH. When: Monday, September 27th at 7 p.m.
For more information, click here.
Venues
Fransiscan Center
6832 Convent Blvd, Sylvania, OH.
On campus of Lourdes College.
Local 50 Plumbers and Steamfitters Union
7570 Caple Dr, near Owens College.
Toledo, OH
The Event Center
23 North Summit Street, downtown Toledo.
Happy Badger Trading Portal
1855 S. Reynolds Rd, Toledo, next to Olive Garden.
International Park
On east side of MLK Bridge. Across from Sports Arena.
Toledo, OH
Downtown Latte
44 S. St. Clair St
Just south of the Mud Hens Stadium in downtown Toledo.
Mickey Finn's
602 Lagrange St, Toledo
People Called Women
3153 W Central Ave, Cricket West Shopping
Center, Toledo.
Brewed Awakenings
2636 W Central Ave.
Toledo, OH
Original Sub Shop
402 Broadway St.
Old South End
Toledo, OH
Lot on 500 Block of Winthrop St.
Toledo, OH
Old West End Commons
Corner of Bancroft and Robinwood streets.
Toledo, OH
St Thomas More University Parish
415 Thurstin St, on campus of Bowling Green State University.
Bowling Green, OH
Central United Methodist Church
701 W Central Ave., Toledo, OH
First Unitarian Church
2210 Collingwood Blvd, at Collingwood and Bancroft
Toledo, OH
Kent Branch Library
3101 Collingwood Blvd
Toledo, OH
Sanger Branch Library
3030 W Central Ave
Toledo, OH
Ohio Theatre
3114 Lagrange St.
Toledo, OH
