Love and Revolution
Directed by Yannis Youlountis (2018)
Film Review
Love and Revolution is about the growing anarchist movement fighting Greece’s deepening austerity cuts (which have cut salaries and pensions in half and ended health care access for a million patients). The film consists mainly of interviews with anarchists over the specific projects they are organizing. The documentary emphatically challenges the recent announcement by the IMF and the European Central Bank that Greek austerity has ended. After years of brutal austerity resulting in thousands of deaths, the Greek government is further than ever from repaying its debt to European bankers.
Among the projects that most impressed me are
- a social kitchen that regular provides free meals on the street.
- an anti-eviction movement that has been by occupying and shutting down eviction hearings at the District Court.
- an ongoing squat that has provided accommodation to more than 6,000 refugees in the last five years.
- an antifascist campaign that has shut down Golden Dawn* offices in Athens and established Exarcheia, a fascist-free zone that also effectively excludes Greek police.
- a campaign to block the construction of a new airport in a pristine rural/agricultural area.
- a YouTube channel dedicated to Greek news from the viewpoint of anti-austerity activists, rather than police and banks.
*See Greek Austerity and the Rise of Fascism
The Most Revolutionary Act 