Camera, Action!
:A Film Festival at the Gathering of Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Practices against Borders
On January 26 and 27, during the first International Gathering of Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Practices against Borders in Tijuana, Mexico, the CrimethInc. Ex-Worker Podcast will present a curated series of anarchist films from around the world. In addition to showing our own published shorts and debuting some new material, we will curate a series of anarchist features, dramas, video propaganda, oddities, and experiments.
Call for Participation
If you want to submit a film for us to share at the gathering, email us! The deadline to receive submissions is January 20, 2024.
We will give priority to films whose producers or participants can attend in person to speak about the project or the subject of their video.
Please make sure your movie has English or Spanish subtitles—ideally, both.
Your invitation to the first International Gathering of Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Practices against Borders in Tijuana, Mexico, January 25-27.
A Tradition of Transgression
While anarchists around the world oppose and resist borders, this is a rare opportunity to join with anarchists on both sides of the US-Mexico in order to comprise a single movement. We can look back on a few precedents.
From 1910-1912, anarchists crossed into northern Mexico to join forces with the Magonistas in their military campaign to liberate towns like Ensenada, Tijuana, and Tecate from the state, clergy, and capital. Dozens of anarchists and Wobblies took up arms in this struggle. In Coahuila, they did away with the constitution and declared anarcho-communism.
A century ago: revolutionary dreamers in arms.
Several years later, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman organized legal support for Ricardo Flores Magón when he was in exile in California, persecuted by the counter-revolutionary victors of the Mexican Revolution.
In the 1990s, the anarchist federation Love & Rage included a Mexico City section, Amor Y Rabia, which published a newspaper of the same name and organized a variety of anarcho-punk activities. The federation attracted a few hundred members and played a crucial role in revitalizing anarchism in North America at the end of the 20th century.
In 2006, the anarchist videographer Brad Will participated in the months-long uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico. Paramilitary supporters of the government murdered him on October 27 of that year, and the state used his death as an excuse to send thousands of military police to invade the city. Brad’s documentary work played a crucial role in supporting liberation struggles all around the so-called Americas.
In 2007, anarchists and other anti-border activists established a week-long No Borders Camp at an unwalled portion of the US-Mexico border between Mexicali and Calexico. These two cities essentially comprise a single metropolis divided in two by the wall. Under the blinding floodlights of US Border Patrol, anarchists on both sides of the border shared food, watched presentations and movies, planned actions, and forged lifelong friendships.
Perhaps the last event comparable to the upcoming International Gathering of Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Practices Against Borders was the Jornadas Informales Anárquicas in Mexico City in December 2013, which drew anti-authoritarian comrades from Italy, Greece, and Chile as well as the United States and Mexico. The speakers included Gustavo Rodriguez, Wolfi Landstreicher, and Alfredo Bonanno.
For over a century, anarchists have sought horizons of liberation in defiance of the US-Mexico border. The International Gathering of Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Practices against Borders is a chance to kindle the flames that forge connections of international solidarity.
We’ll be there to tell stories and show the scenes that corporate media seeks to conceal.
We hope to see you there, too.
