video
Revo Productions,
Available from Debbie
Epstein, Martineau
Centre, 74 Balden
Road, Birmingham
B32 2EH.
#021-449-4428. Hire
£7, purchase £18.
Reviewed by KEVIN &
JOHN LISTER
YOUTH Against Apartheid is the title of a new video aimed at getting the facts of the
South African struggle across to young people.
The vidco has been made hy
Revo Productions, a collective of unemployed youth formed in
Birmingham earlier this year,
Their first work runs for some 44 minutes, and to judge its offectiveness in its declared aim of telling the facts in simple language for a teenage audience,
I persuaded my 13-year old son
Kevin to give it a "test drive"
Kevin is concerned about South
AGAINST
APARTHEID
MM
about apartheid
Africa, having done sponsored a cycle ride for Mandela. He appeared to have picked up a lot of information from it, but saw both strengths and weaknesses in
*know what they are trying to do. I think it was quite good for kids who don'1 know that much about South Africa but want to find out more.
'I was most interested by the things I didn't know before. I hadn't realised that South Africa had invaded Namibia. And though I knew about Mandela in: jail I didn't know Steve Biko had been murdered in prison.
*Another really interesting thing the video told me was bow few whites there are. Out of twenty tive million people in South Africa, over twenty million are black, And I didn't know schools only teach black
I thought the use of news film was gond: it was all casy to understand. But the video goes on too long in just the same format, and this gets boring. 1 didn't watch it to the end. There was too much talking in the same tone of voice hy the same woman.
'One other problem was that the video showed why we should
3
The Running Man
Film, starring Amold
Schwarzenegger.
Reviewed by
TRACY DOYLE
BASED on a story by
Stepben King, The Running
Man is a chilling vision of the future, of the decline of capitalism into barbarism.
Set in the America of 2019, it takes to the limit the logic of consumerist society. The cilies team with the poor and dispossessed, held in place by state violence and the power of the media Giant television screens on every street comer are used to manipulate the emotions and stamp out any rebellion.
Policeman Ben Richards
(Amold Schwarzenegger) is call for sanctions against South
Africa but didn't explain what sanctions were supposed to
*Perhaps I just knew too much about South Africa to start with. 1 think if the video was used in sections, with some chance to discuss and ask questions between them it would keep people's attention better.
Youth Agdinst Apartheid: the
Video comes with an information bookiet, and is designed for showing at youth clubs, schools
IT IS WTTH deepest sadness that we report the death of defender of socialist principles. Those who knew him will miss him greatly, including those with whom he had many deep differences. If we failed to offer him the support be needed, we remain convinced that he would not wish us to falter in the fight against oppression and exploitation.
Gotcha!
directed by his superiors to fire from his helicopter onto a crowd of food rioters, unarmed women and children. When he refuses he is overpowered, The subsequent massacre is pinned on him, a film of events in the cockpit is doctored to rewrite what happend, and he is sentenced to a prison camp.
Joining with a group of freedom fighters, he takes part in a break-out, He refuses to commit himself to their struggle, but his plans to retum to his old haunts are thwarted. He finds himsolf captured and forced to 'star" in a cult television show "The Running Man", together with his fellow escapees.
The studio audience and viewers bay for blood as criminals are roicased into a sealed-off and deserted part of the city, to be hunted down and killed by 'stalkers' cquipped with a vast armoury of vicious weapons.
Taking on Richards and his cohorts proves too much for the stalkers, whose wcapons are tumed against them, and then (clevision transmitters hidden deep in the game area are seized by the fugitives.
While this film is probably aimed mostly at scinoc fiction Cans (especially those who enjoyed The Terminator and Robocop), it has its share of thrilling moments.
If you have ever felt real anger and frustration at the 'Gotcha!" mentality of those who never question the "loadsamoney" philosophy, and swallow the hypocrisy and violence of Thatcher's Brilain, you'llove watching the smiles being wiped off their faces as their stalker heroes are mown down one by onc.
Judging from the peals of laughter of the film audience, this pout was not lost on them cither! Obituary Craig Robertson Istington Briefing supporter, Craig Robertson, who committed suicide on November 12th. Craig was a long time fighter in all the battles of the working class and the oppressed and a fierce