An interview with

Viva Riva! director

Djo Munga

Everyone who’s seen Viva Riva! raves about it. A Congolese film noir written and directed by Djo Munga, the film has been racking up awards at international film festivals (the latest, just a few days ago, for "Best Feature" at the AITP Film Festival) and earning praise from even the most exacting film critics and publications — Time Out New York called it "One of the best neo-noirs from anywhere in recent memory"; Sight & Sound, after describing the film’s premise writes "But if that outline suggests a standard genre piece with a novel setting, Viva Riva! is much more than that," and goes on to praise its energy, ideas, candid performances by the cast of non-professionals and unprecedentedly frank sexuality, and concludes: "…with its quickfire shifts from sex to violence to betrayal and back again, that exclamation point in Munga’s title is fully earned." Such accolades are no small feat for a first-feature director.

So a short while ago we sat down with Djo Munga to find out just how he did it — his inspiration for the film, the casting and rehearsal process, shooting in Kinshasa. He talked about about the film’s reception in different parts of the world, the Congolese film industry, his dream collaboration, and much more. 

Director Djo Munga

 

TIA: What inspired you to make Viva Riva?

DM: I wanted to make a film that would allow me to talk about the reality of Kinshasa, and at the same time be entertaining, but I didn’t want to do it through social-realism, the typical documentary-like style of filming when trying to “capture” Africa, because that can be boring. I wanted to communicate to the masses. Culturally speaking, the Congolese — and black people in general — we have a need for cultural products that represent us in ways we can be proud of while remaining entertaining. This doesn’t mean I want to make films that ignore the problems; that’s not the case. I just wanted to experiment; I wanted to make a hugely entertaining film that could also reflect the last 20 years of Kinshasa’s history.

TIA: I notice that African filmmakers can feel pressured to make films that are politically charged or socially engaged. Did you feel that pressure?

DM: Well, I don’t see it as a pressure. I think it’s necessary at this stage in our history, as Congolese and Africans, to have a political point of view. There are some important issues that we should talk about, and it’s perfectly normal to talk about them, but I think the way we talk about these issues is also very important. In other words, the form the message takes to reach the audience is important. The way I see it, knowing the level of literacy in the Congo, you can’t as a filmmaker go, “I’m going to make a film about this complex situation and if people don’t get it that’s their problem.”

I was inspired by what Latin American writers did many years ago. I remember a guy by the name of Eduardo Galeano; he wrote the book… I forgot the title in English but you can check it, Les Veines Ouvertes de l’Amerique Latine (Open Veins of Latin America) and actually he was explaining the history of Latin America, but he did it as a soap opera to make it easy for people to understand and to be entertained. When I read that book as a student, I was like wow!, maybe this is the way we should do it. We need to find ways to reach the masses when talking about important issues, and you can do this while being entertaining.

TIA: I hear that most of the actors in Viva Riva! weren’t professionally trained. What was the rehearsal and casting process like?

DM: In Kinshasa, like in many poor countries, you have a lot of artists – I mean people who are doing what they do for the love of it; it’s the meaning of their lives, and they don’t do it for the money or for whatever reason. So in the misery of Congo we have a kind of luxury to have all these artists available and ready to work. So I said to these guys, “You have a lot of talent and you are good at what you do, but let’s go into a workshop where you will learn the techniques of working with the camera, and of working in film. And they came and worked for two months, you know, just discovering their bodies and how to work with the camera, etc. And after that, we stopped for a year — I mean I sent them back to their daily lives and they came back the next year for production. Then they started to work with an acting coach in terms of developing their characters and [learning] how to get deep into a script. After two months of this, we started rehearsing. I gave them the script, and they rehearsed every day, maybe like three hours every morning. So yeah, it was a real pleasure. It didn’t feel like work, to tell you the truth. We had a lot of fun…I think (laughs).

TIA: I think most creative works reflect the artist in some way. If I am right, how do you personally relate to the characters of the film?

DM: (Laughs). That’s a tricky question. Well, I relate to many of them, so it’s difficult to say which one is closest to me because all of them are a part of me in a way. So I can see how “the commander” was more or less like a tyrant, but suddenly she was stuck in a situation and she started to change and then she becomes someone else — that happens to all of us.
And with Riva, I can see also the way he avoids facing problems, and how his family’s problems are like mine. So all of them are like me in some ways. I think the way I write stories, I mean because I have many characters, is a way of putting yourself in various situations and trying to be as true as possible to the character and different situations.

TIA: The film has been traveling the festival circuit for a while now. Where are some of the places it’s screened? 

DM: All over the world, more or less. We showed it in Kinshasa first as a test, then we screened it at the Toronto Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, at festivals in Austin, Texas, France, England, Ireland and Hong Kong. It was very surprising that the film sold out in Hong Kong. This says something, actually, because we often think that China’s too far from us, and I thought they might say this is not for us. But why should they say that? People are interested in stories, no matter where they're from. So for me, it was very good screening in Hong Kong. I was really amazed by the audience – they were really warm, they liked the film, and I had a really exciting interaction with them afterwards, so I was really happy; I was really pleased with the audience.

TIA:  So are you surprised with all the positive reviews that your film has earned?

DM: Totally, totally surprised. Look at it from this point of view: I studied in Europe, in film school, so from the European point of view, you have this sense that, well, America is only interested in American films which is basically Hollywood and maybe some independent films, and that the rest of the world really doesn’t exist and Africa exists even less. That’s the point of view we had. But then the film was shown at the Toronto Film Festival and an American distributor was the first to buy the film and actually, the film’s first theatrical release [in the States] will be in New York, which is a sign really, a really big sign that maybe I was wrong to think the way I did. I mean since September, when the film opened in Toronto, it went really deep into my mind – I was thinking what does that mean to me now? It also broadened my vision of America: So “Okay, we like your film,” so I’m welcome.

They took this film as they would a French film with Catherine Deneuve; I mean, she’s a bigger actress but still, it says something. Also, as a black person, it says something that I don’t have the feeling of [being] a sellout or someone who made a film just for Westerners. I feel like I’m just a filmmaker who made a film that people enjoyed. So it was definitely a big surprise, and that surprise was confirmed at the SXSW Film Festival and also yesterday, when I came to Baltimore, by the reception I got. So yeah, all the positive reviews have been a big surprise, a really big surprise.

TIA: It seems like our cultural backgrounds often influence the ways in which we interact with films. How has the reception been different in different parts of the world?

DM: African audiences loved it, at least in Congo; it was a big thing. But I was surprised that people [at film festivals] in America found the film violent. There were a lot of comments about that. I was surprised because they have all these action movies and TV shows on American TV. So there must be a reason why they find the film violent. I think maybe it’s because of the way the film is shot – it’s a bit different from the films they’re used to seeing. It’s not shot like a documentary but I think it takes you close to the characters the way a documentary takes you close to real people, so they get into the story more and feel the violence a bit more.

In Hong Kong, they said the same thing. They said we are used to Chinese action movies, but we know they’re not real. But in Europe they didn’t say that. They felt it was different, so those are the type of reactions I received.

Africans didn’t comment on the violence at all. Maybe because part of it was reality, I don’t know, but the African critics and journalists have been very, very supportive of the film – especially Nigerians. They feel that maybe this film is a change or offers a possibility for change for the industry in the future. I hope it will. And I’m really happy about it.

TIA: One of the recurrent criticisms of the film is that it portrays African women in negative, stereotypical ways. How do you respond to that?

DM: Well, some have said “he portrays women in a negative perspective,” but others have said I’m a feminist. Of course, I prefer to think of myself as a feminist.

Women face big problems in our society, especially in Congo, and I think I’ve tried to address these problems through the film’s female characters. Nora, for instance, is a beautiful woman trapped in her world and in a particular life, but with Riva, maybe she has the possibility to escape. Then there’s the commander who is maneuvering in society and tries to be free, but she can’t really, and her friend, Malou, and also the women of GM. It’s like different perspectives on Congolese women I tried to put. I don’t think I was negative in that sense. I tried to look at reality and of course, I could talk about the happy women who just got married and life is fantastic and all that, but in a country that is 167th poorest in the world, life is not easy and especially not for women, so that’s what I tried to show.

TIA: Since this is your first feature film, perhaps it’s too early to talk about legacy. Nonetheless, how would you like to be remembered as a filmmaker? And will all your subsequent films take place in African settings?

DM: Well, if people remember the films I made and the stories I told and enjoyed them, I would be happy. When I think about Sergio Leone, I don’t think about him being Italian – I just think about the great movies he made. Or if I think about Fritz Lang, I don’t think of him as being German or going to the West and then coming back – I just think how great of an artist he was. So I think of myself as an artist, and as an artist I try to do films in different places - which I have done. I shot a documentary in Ireland a long time ago, I’ve had projects in various parts of the world, and it’s important to me that I stick to that.

TIA: So what’s the film industry like in DR Congo?

DM: Nothing. There's no industry in the classical sense, because when you talk about an industry, it means that there's a structure, it means there are schools, there are systems in place for raising funds, hiring people, making films, and also finishing the films as in doing post-production work with all these labs and infrastructure to release the films once they’re made in order to recoup your costs. That does not exist; we only have what I call “gunmen”, like me, and various directors. We try to find opportunities to make films, which is basically as tough as robbing a bank, but that’s what we do. But I hope there will be an industry 20 years from now. One part of my work is that I do training programs. I try to help young filmmakers learn their craft, so that one day they can make films themselves.

TIA: What is your advice to aspiring young African filmmakers?

DM: Study. It’s very, very important. I hope I don’t sound too conservative, but still it’s important to be able to read great writers – like James Baldwin, a fantastic writer, Chester Himes, a fantastic writer – they are all very big writers, including African writers like Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. Those are some of the more famous ones. And also to watch a lot of movies, classical movies. I mean I strongly believe education is the key to development. It’s almost impossible to develop without an education, except for a few people.

TIA: What are some of your future plans?

DM: First I’ll try to survive, which means I’ll try to find a way to make the next film. And making a film is also interacting with the industry. It means having a story and finding partners to invest. You know, I’m just in the business like everybody else, and I’m a small fish. So I’ll see where there’s a possibility for the next film, and I’ll try to do something.

TIA: Who are some actors and directors that you would love to collaborate with?

DM: I think Number One on that list would be Forest Whitaker. If I have the opportunity to work with him, I definitely will. I would also love to maybe adapt a book by someone like Chinua Achebe, or Alain Mabanckou, who is a Congolese writer. I think it would be challenging, and it would be something very interesting to do. I mean if I had the money, I would definitely do it, because I would love to bring his (Mabanckou’s) work to a bigger audience.

TIA: Lastly, what is a common misconception about living in Kinshasa that you would like to dispel?

DM: Misconceptions… I think the biggest one is… I want people to know that Kinshasa is actually a safe place, that most of the Congo is very safe. People refer to the Congo as this heart of darkness and this place where you can’t really live properly, which is not true – not at all true. I think this is the biggest misconception about the Congo.

Interview by Yves-Alec Tambashe
Djo Munga photos by Shako Oteka

via thisisafrica.me

__________________________

INTERVIEW:

TWITCH TALKS EXCLUSIVELY

TO VIVA RIVA! DIRECTOR

DJO MUNGA

>via: http://twitchfilm.com/interviews/2011/05/interview-twitch-talks-exclusively-t...

__________________________

Djo Munga:

The Art of Pushing Boundaries

in African Cinema (Part 1)

posted by Belinda Otas

“In Kinshasa, every day is a struggle and every night is a party. In a city where everything is for sale, Riva has something everyone wants.” – Djo Tunda wa

Munga’s debut feature film,Viva Riva! had cinema buffs the world over in awe. Set in Kinshasa, DRC, the film depicts the country’s tumultuous existence as it chronicles the life of Riva, an ambitious mobster in the making, who returns home after spending a decade in Angola, only to find the country in dire straits as a result of fuel shortages.  What unravels is an enthralling story of frank realism that includes crime, violence, disorder, corruption and sexuality, revealing the myriad complexities of Kinshasa and its citizens. In his own words, Djo Munga and the art of pushing boundaries in African cinema. 

Belinda: Why was it important to tell the story of Viva Riva the way you did?

Djo: This was the first film in 26 years in Congo. When you realise there is no film industry in your country and you are producing the first film in 26 years, you really want to do something different and make a great film. At the same time, you want what you have to say to be personal and important and for people to understand it. In that sense I wanted to talk about the city of Kinshasa because that’s my hometown and many people can relate to it. In the global sense, it was really important to try and describe the city in a way it has never been described.  You talk about night life, the problems that we have and it is important to address certain issues and I also wanted to explore the last 13 years of the city, the war, violence and the change, you know, the new Congo, the crisis and shortage of (fuel) petrol/gas because the shortage did happen in 2001, among the other important elements that was vital to this story.

Belinda: What significant impact has it had in terms of shaping different narratives about the DRC since it was released?

Djo: We had a couple of screenings in Congo, and had close to 300/400 people and of course, we were nervous and not sure. But the response was like wow, this is us and it was like have something where you can recognise yourself. The film opened at the Durban film festival (2011) which was the official African premiere and it was the same. It was a really, really big success and people took ownership of that and the young people were saying how proud they were to have a film about themselves. Also, I think this is the first time, they may see a film where the people look like them and at the same time, it is like an art house movie – it has entertainment and is directed by an African director, with the same level/standard of an international film. The reception has been great.

Belinda: Why the name Viva Riva!? 

Djo: (Laughs) the salsa bit is very important in Congo and the term Viva, Viva La Monica, which is a popular band in theCongo and it’s a reference to Salsa. So I picked the name Viva because it is a way of praising the sense of freedom

Belinda: I understand you come from a documentary background. I think it is fair to ask how you were able to marry a documentary background, art house and entertainment. Was it very challenging to approach the issues you bring to the fore in the film?

Djo: It was a challenge because for me, when we look at the Congo, we don’t have a cinema, we have a high level of illiteracy in the country and making a film, you want to focus on the issues and elements for the art house and at the same time, you want it to be accessible. That was the reason why I chose the genre of the film. To achieve the art house vision, it was important for it to be close to a documentary. So, it is like a thriller but in a documentary context. So we shot in Kinshasa in the mode of a documentary/style. We went on location and shot the city based on how it was. It was really delicate to balance. It was kind of a film noir vision and at the same time, an approach/take on reality. 

 Belinda: Viva Riva! has been described as “a tough, sturdy thriller, centred around a small-time hustler called Riva (Patsha Bay), who shows up in the fuel-starved big city with a truck of petrol he’s liberated from his Angolan gangster employers” why did you want to use the metaphor of fuel/petroleum, the lack of it and huge hunger that people have for it as the basis of your film?

 Djo: Wow! That’s a question no one has ever asked me. (Laughter) I mean, there was a shortage of gas in Kinshasa in 2001, and there was also one in Zimbabwe. When there is a shortage of gas, everybody is affected because they feel trapped and when you have fuel, you can go anywhere.  So, you are kind of like in a prison in your own country. And certainly, Gas is so important that I would compare it to drug addicts. If they don’t have it, suddenly, that hunger you are talking about becomes some sort of a crisis. This is also the way to link all the stories together because everybody is kind of in the same problem. When you talk about a city and when a city is functional…not having gas can show how dysfunctional the city can be and on a bigger scale, it will show you how people can get greedy and fight for the same thing. (Hunger in society for gas could also be a hunger for change)

 Belinda: It has also been described as a “gory, fast-paced gangster movie that gives a unique insight into Kinshasa’s ruthless criminal underworld.” We know about war and the reign of terror dished out by rebels on innocent civilians but we often don’t hear the narrative of violence within the scope of ongoing day-to-day life in Kinshasa. What was it about the violence and pain that we as human beings inflict on each other that you wanted to examine?

 Djo: In addition to the gas story, I wanted to explore the effects of capitalism and the violence that happens in Kinshasa and in the Congo. It is a violence which is directly driven by a greed for minerals. In the civil war, for example, like the uprising that you have seen in the Arab world, it is about internal and external forces fighting against the west. In that sense, what I wanted to say about Kinshasa in the story – my tone and intention was ultimately to say Congo has a negative image. It is time to make something different and tell a different story. I want to talk about reality. So what I did was to go to the people’s level and talk about them. People have a life in Congo, every aspect of life and the life goes on and they manage to survive. But also, the violence is a way to depict… I mean…if people think capitalism is good, go to Congo, go and see the effect. 

 Belinda: What authenticity were you aiming to bring to the screen about ordinary life on the streets of Kinshasa?

 Djo: I wanted to emphasise how people manage top cope with everything.  The film also has humour and you can see that people have desires and go about on a day to day basis and deal with all of that.

 Belinda: Now you also have one scene where an Angolan is looking down on a Congolese.  Now this is one topic we as Africans are uncomfortable talking about. We will gladly talk about western colonisers but we don’t talk about the fact that we also look down on each other. Why did you want to address that issue?

 Djo: Well, because we don’t talk about it and we don’t talk about ourselves and to be honest, it is very important to raise these issues. In my country where I see the UN mission, which also has many Africans, the attitude there and hierarchy is also questioning what it means to be a Pan-Africanist and be African. There is a racist attitude that we see elsewhere with white people and it is worse because they are Africans and I think all that is part of underdevelopment. The racism that we have among ourselves, the lack of empathy that we have among ourselves and the lack of everything. It is also a question of society. The film is not just about entertainment. It is also a mirror on what the society is.

 Belinda: Is it too early to say that with the work you are now doing on the ground that a cultural renaissance is on the horizon?

 Djo: Oh that’s too early because it is currently on the individual level and to talk about a renaissance you need to have different elements that are coming together and people coming together and pushing it…but I would love to have a renaissance but let’s see realistically if that will happen.

 (PART 2)

Belinda: When it comes to breaking barriers, especially on the issue of filming sex and sexuality in African cinema, how far did you want to push that boundary and why did you want to go there with one or two of the sex films in Viva Riva!?

 Djo: I wanted to push as far as possible and what you see in the film, we are not making a porn film. Look at most African films, there is a night life and sex is part of the life of people…we have doctored ourselves for so long, it was important to me that we push and see…for example, we know that in Kinshasa, the problem of prostitution is quite huge and we have a city that is sexy in the sense that all the relationships between men and women and their sexuality is kind of rich.  So, it was okay to say we must have this in the film but the point is not around that. It was not a point about being naïve but about looking at Africa and saying this is now and today. And it is also a genre film and together, it worked well.

 Belinda: I understand you trained everyone involved in the film. Was this because there were no trained actors and crew members and what does this say about the current state of the Congolese film industry? Or was it a case whereby you wanted an organic end product?

 Djo: We have no film school or institutions, nothing. We have people who have talent but that talent is not enough. We needed to teach people how to use that talent for the camera and then it became an organic work. We had to train the actors, the technicians and that’s the way things were across the film, Viva Riva!

 Belinda: You show us a busy and bustling night life despite the fact that the news media would have us believe, people are locked away in their homes as a result of fear, the raping and looting we hear so much about in the news. What do you hope your film adds to the narratives of DRC and Africa as it is today?

 Djo: Well, when people ask and many people write to me and say we are really proud that you have made that film. It is also the fact that people question Nollywood and you have a lot of journalists saying this is what Nollywood should do. I think it is a sign that I brought something new. Maybe like a new direction and the fact that the film is a success and has opened in these different and many countries, US, UK, Australia and South Africa. It is also a sign that first, as an African director, we have something to say to the world and the world is ready to listen to it and Africans are also ready to listen to it. And people enjoy the film. And in terms of identity, we are building our confidence.

Belinda: Let’s talk about Africa’s famous film industry, Nollywood, why do you think it has been so successful and what do you think, it will take to show African cinema beyond Nollywood because there are other film industries  taking shape, from Ghana to Liberia?

 Djo: Nollywood has been successful in terms of its ability to respond to the need of African audiences to have their own imagery on screen. That was I believe, the moment when people dreamt of Africans in the scripts even if the stories were not good, at least it was some kind of their imagery, which if you compare to certain cinema, certain art house cinema for example, they are well directed but people just don’t follow.  African cinema just didn’t have that then, it was like they failed to represent the people and so Nollywood was an answer, in order fill a void. At the same time, Nollywood is a reduced form of quality and in that sense that didn’t work and that’s why I think Viva Riva! did so well and to so many people, it was an answer in terms of telling an African story. It is telling a story with modern entertainment, quality and imagery. I think the film was answering to that.

 Belinda: The film has created a new narrative about Kinshasa. are you now under pressure for your next film to deliver?

 Djo: (Laughs) no, I feel more confident in terms of wanting to push further and I am more eager to do better and put more elements. But first I feel more pressure to raise the money and to be able to make the film. It is not because there is an interest that you do it. All the elements have to come together. I feel pressured to have all the elements together.

 Belinda: Will the lack of funding will be an issue for your filmmakers who will see what you have done and want to emulate you?

 Djo: Of course, it is terrible that African filmmakers have to go to western countries to find money. And that is a problem and a really big problem. And I hope that at some appoint, the government of the different African countries will be able to change the attitude to funding?

 Belinda: Are you working on anything at present and when should we expect another film from you?

Djo: I am working on a Chinese/Congolese story, a gangster movie also set in Kinshasa and. It also a look at what is Africa today?

>via: http://belindaotas.com/?p=10659

Jean Depara’s

Night and Day

in Kinshasa 1951-1975

Above Untitled. (©Jean Depara/Courtesy Galerie Maison Revue Noire).

 

In 1950, Angolan born Jean Depara (1928-1997) purchased a small Adox 6x6cm camera with the sole intention of recording his own impending wedding — in this respect, it could be said that he found photography almost by accident — but what is clear, from this point on he was rarely parted from his camera and was constantly seeking out new subjects to photograph. 

Following a move to Kinshasa (formerly Léopoldville) in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1951, Depara supported himself and his new wife, by combining his new found passion for image-making along with various small jobs; such as repairing bicycles or cameras, dealing in scrap metal, and periods working at the cities Bata shoe factory. Just three years on, and he had established such a significant reputation for the quality of his photography that the celebrated Zairian singer Franco invited him to become his official photographer in 1954. 

 

Above Untitled. (©Jean Depara/Courtesy Galerie Maison Revue Noire).

 

Kinshasa moved to the rhythm of the Rumba and the Cha Cha in the 1950s, and Depara became the chronicler of its social life. In 1956 he established his own studio under the name Jean Whisky Depara, where he would make portraits, family photographs and document celebrations. When not in his studio, he would spend his days documenting the clientele and daily life of bars like the Kwist, or the Sarma Congo; whilst his evenings where spent hanging out in one of the cities many nightclubs, such as the, Afro Mogenbo, the Champs-Elysées, the Djambo Djambu, or the Show Boat. 

Following independence from Belgium, and the formation of the République du Congo — as it became known — in 1960. Kinshasa saw an influx of cultural influences, most notably the music and fashions of Europe, and most importantly America. Luxury American automobiles became de rigueur; the fashion conscious youth — or Sapeurs as they where known — strutted their stuff on the streets of Kinshasa; whilst the musical influences of 1960s Europe and America, combined with more traditional and local forms of music, to create a highly distinct, and unique sound.

 

Above Untitled. (©Jean Depara/Courtesy Galerie Maison Revue Noire).

 

It is against this background that Depara continued to work, building an historically rich, and culturally significant document of social life in Kinshasa between 1951 and 1975, a body of work that is equal to that of the great Malian photographers, Seydou Keïta (1921-2001), and Malick Sidibé. 

One of the key themes amongst Depara’s work, was the Miziki, associations of women whose tradition was firmly rooted in pre-independence, and who held a prominent position in Kinshasa society. A Moziki (singular form of Miziki) could act as a banker within her social circle. ‘In the 1950s and 1960s, Miziki associations took such names as La Pause and La Mode, and commissioned famous bands to compose songs for their annual events.’ 

 

Above Untitled. (©Jean Depara/Courtesy Galerie Maison Revue Noire).

 

By the 1970s, Depara was beginning to find times hard. He continued to work exclusively in black-and-white, at a time when his clients where demanding to be photographed in colour, and at the same time, the advent of the automated photographic labs that where springing up all over west Africa, where pushing prices ever downwards. In 1975, Depara became the official photographer of the National Assembly of Democratic Republic of Congo, and whilst he continued to document Kinshasa’s social life in his spare time, he would retire completely from photography in 1989. 

Throughout his career, Depara rarely if ever titled his work, and it was only following his death in 1997, that his best friend Oscar Mbemba, would carefully title many of his photographs in the spirit of the era in which each image was made.

 

Reflections Of

A Black Queer

Suicide Survivor

Darnell L. Moore is writer and activist who lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

 

by Darnell Moore

April 18, 2012

I grew up in Camden, New Jersey, during a time, not unlike the present, when it was well known as one of the state’s and country’s most economically deprived, criminally devastated urban spaces. Poverty was felt and seen. Friends were murdered before the celebration of their eighteenth birthdays. Hopelessness was evidenced on streets where homes sat abandoned along trash-lined streets. And, despite all of this, I was carefully and lovingly nurtured by a young mother who sought to protect her quirky son from the staunch realities of life growing up in a troubled urban space that we both loved and called home.

I considered why it was that they would be so determined to set me on fire.

My mother was a victim of intimate partner violence. My father, who was fifteen when I was born, seemed to know more about hurt than love. And, he demonstrated that knowledge through his actions.

The first time I tried to end my life my father had just finished brutally beating my mother. I felt horrified, angry and helpless. While I do not remember the specifics of that particular attack, I do remember my response. Eleven years of life, or so, had begun to feel like an eternity of pain and I wanted out quickly. So, I moved toward the window in the small bedroom that I shared with my three younger sisters and with mournful tears in my eyes announced that I was about to jump. I thought that my leap would distract my father long enough to stop him from punching my mom in her face and would be cause for my other family member’s intervention in a common occurrence that was wreaking havoc on all of our lives.

I was a dreamer—and remain so until this day—and earnestly dreamt about life after death in a “home” where violence and violation would not be common a phenomenon. I was tired of covering my head with pillows every night attempting to drown out my cries.

A few years later, I sat in a hospital after having been attacked by a group of teenage boys a few houses down from my own. I was a budding black teenage male who preferred playtime with the girls. I was thin and most of the boys my age were developing muscular physiques. I wore glasses and was called a “nerd” even while other boys who wore glasses were called” tough”. I was told that I was ugly and “froggy” because of my dark brown skin, coarse hair, big pinkish-brown lips, astigmatic eyes, long fingers, skinny legs and big feet. The other boys were labeled “sexy” and “hard” because of everything that I was not, at least I thought.

I dressed like a preacher nearly every day of my eighth grade year. I donned trench coats, dress slacks and “church shoes” while other boys rocked the newest and flyest footwear and clothes. My awkwardness, my particular brand of “book smart”/”choir boy” masculinity, my tastes and hobbies, my body shape, and my bodily movements distinguished me from my other black/brown teen males peers. I didn’t name myself “gay”, nor did I think that I was, but I became my school’s and neighborhood’s typified faggot/sissy/punk/bitch. And, I suffered emotional and psychological pain because of this naming and claiming of my identity by others.

As I tried to relax in the emergency room, after having been surrounded by five or so boys, after having been hit by ten or so fists, after having been doused with a gallon of kerosene, after having witnessed one of the boys, my neighbor, strike a match that refused to be lit because of the steady force of the wind. I considered why it was that they would be so determined to set me on fire. At fourteen, I just presumed that they were drawn to attack those who they considered weak, the neighborhood “pussies.”

As an adult, I still think the same: they imaged me as a “pussy”: as a feminized and fetishized object to be touched without permission, violated, destroyed, punctured by real men. They wanted to destroy me because I was, to them, a living sign of difference, subversive rebelliousness, an affront on black masculinity and the sanctity of their presumed heterosexuality (even though a few of the “hard” neighborhood boys tried to cross the boundaries of their heterosexuality with me). In many ways, it was this same force of ideas (i.e. What it means to be a boy/man in the hood? A black boy/man? A black queer boy/man? etc.) that had its hand on my back, pushing me, a few years before as I readied myself to leap from my window.

Death—once again—seemed liked the only conceivable option after my boyfriend repeatedly cheated, verbally abused, physically assaulted, and left me.

By the time I entered my early twenties, suicidal thoughts had become my primary response to relief. In them, I felt a strange comfort in knowing that the traumatic pain caused by others and life circumstances would end.

To get to that end—a space of peace, and freedom from victimization—I came to the wrong conclusion that I needed to sacrifice myself, to die, to at once be free. I did not realize that freedom would not come by way of my death—whether imagined or real—but by the radical transformation of the spaces, dismantling of ideas, and removal of people who created the “hells” in my life that had me longing for “heaven.” It wasn’t clear to me, like it is today, that by killing myself I would have aided the perpetrators and systems that had been trying to do so for years. I became my own offender metaphorically preying on myself and carrying the same weapons (not unlike the kerosene and lighter) that some others had used against me years before.

I thought that I had to ameliorate, or rather destroy altogether, the cause of my problems: me. This was evidenced, particularly, during my first relationship with another brother who happened to be younger than me by a few years, though he was no less wise. I instantly fell in love, at least I thought that was what it was, with a guy whose representation had secretly joined me in my dreams: he was tall, fit like an athlete, “hood”, and sexy. He was the type of guy that I could take home as a platonic friend and kick it with in the bedroom like the fantasy partner I would dream about. He was so perfect, physically, and so wrong for me, in every other way. And, in many ways, I was wrong for me as well. I had a low self-esteem and grabbed hold of anything and anyone to fill in the gaping holes in my heart. I longed for the attentiveness of others, as I always had, and took it in whatever manner it came, good or bad. I wanted badly to not be alone and willingly connected to a brother who communicated in more than one way that (dis)connection was the only route to friendship that he knew.

My internal issues were mine, though. My personality characteristics, disposition and history—the history of a young black boy who lived clandestinely under constant surveillance, policing and threat of victimization—resulted in the formation of a twenty-something in need of community and love in ways that he had yet to fully experience both in his school, home and life world. And, I was all too willing to accept any semblance of either even if they showed up as knock-offs.

To live, we must put an end those things that would, otherwise, be cause for our own funerals.

Death—once again—seemed like the only conceivable option after my boyfriend repeatedly cheated, verbally abused, physically assaulted, and left me. My early-twenty-something life, which was supposed to be full of sunshine and bliss, was characterized by days full of endless sleep, tears and brokenness. In retrospect, he wasn’t the cause of my leap into turmoil, though, he clearly aided in the spurring of many sleepless and tearful nights, but the “me” that suffered through those dark days—and those that followed him—was the same “me” that stood at the window, the same “me” that pondered-many-a-day the pain that I suffered at the hands of others, the same bullied, debased, self-deflated, broken, sissy, ugly, nerd, pussy me. I mastered the art of visioning myself as others had done for years. I fashioned myself as the victim in a world ruled by those who hated me. I imagined that I would become the victor when I took power over others by taking the life that they seemed to hold power over, my own.

The reality is: I never desired to die.

I wanted to be free from the painful situations that eroded the peace in my life. I was born into a world that was not ready for the arrival of a black, male/female loving, gender-maneuvering, book/dance/music-adoring, economically challenged, urban boy. Indeed, the world is not and has not ever been ready for me and other brown/black/queer men.

Whether it were ships that we jumped from in the Middle Passage, auction blocks and chattel slavery plantations that we ran from, lynching trees that our torn and naked bodies hung from, homes where our bodies roasted after having been set ablaze, streets where our legs and arms were ripped into by dogs, prisons, corners in the hood, suburban streets, courtrooms, war ravaged territories, doctors’s offices, each others’ arms…black/brown/queer men have been born into a world, and its various spaces, where we have been made hyperly-aware of other’s desires for our demise. It makes sense to me, then, why death has become a tool used by some to solve the problem of our existence. It is hard to live when others would prefer you dead.

This is the paradox that frames our existence and survival as queer black/brown male-identified persons in today’s global community. We live—some of us—despite the incessant negativity and violence that often surrounds and harms us, contested public policies and problematic state propaganda that attempt to define and malign us, and the condemnatory words of faith leaders and families that weaken and kill us. We die—some of us—because of the same.

But, we fight (and have fought)—all of us—through states of virulence and violence in communities where others (and, we ourselves) have yet to fully see us in our diversity of expression and beauty.

We have, yet, to be seen, beheld, beyond others’ characterizations of black/brown queer men as negations, as problems, as subjects of deficit-focused case studies, as social beings with the budding potential to do and be better as opposed to human beings who are—most of us—in real time, doing and being the better for ourselves and each other within our shared world. Yes, even in these times—the post-Nugent, Rustin, Baldwin, Beam, Sylvester, Hemphill, Riggs days—brown/black queer men exist within ideological terrains and amidst structural conditions that literally murder us. To live, then, we must commit to the hard work of provoking resurrections in our lives and the lives of other queer men of color. To live, we must put an end those things that would, otherwise, be cause for our own funerals.

If we are to offer eulogies, let them be on behalf of those things that push us toward death.

For example, a good friend scolded me recently and asked that I get “real” and let go of my “performances.” He called into question my seeming happiness and cautioned me to allow folk to see the real me: my hurts, my tears, my vulnerabilities, and my failures. I responded defensively by reminding him that what he perceived to be a performance for everyone else (i.e. my daily proclamation of life-producing affirmations; my intention to acknowledge my strengths and accomplishments as much as I focus on my weaknesses and failures; my practicing of self-love, self-care and even selfishness as much as I commit to the sharing of love and concern for others and selflessness; my building up as opposed to the tearing down of self; my smiling despite crying; my laughing in spite of hurting; my living regardless of my body dying…) is my mode of survival. Why did my brother-friend seem to insist that sadness and brokenness and pain and defeat (though, my life is certainly full of all of the above sometimes) were more realistic characterizations of my life than contentment, fulfillment, joy and triumph?

Why, why, why or we more prone to envision and believe the lives of black/brown queer man as those lacking victories, joyous stories, deep love for self and others, laughter, intimacy, bursts of praise to God and our ancestors and awe, but easy for us to imagine him as a societal burden, statistic, and corpse? My friends discomfort with my daily movement towards life, rather than death, is suggestive of a larger societal problem, namely, society’s attractiveness to the defeated and debased and dehumanized and dead brown/black queer men of color.

It is our time to live; indeed, it has always been.

Even if we live amongst those, necrophiliacs, attracted to our metaphorical and genuine demise, we have what is needed within us individually and among us communally to push through such desires in the same way we lived (and are living) in spite of the auction block, chains, whips, nooses, firing squads, laws, prisons, street corners, public health office examination rooms, strangers’ fists, lovers’ arms, and our own hands. It is easy to live when we can put to death others’ thoughts of us. So live, brothers.

This essay was originally published as a two part series on Yolo Akili’s blog.

 

Luis Gama

- The first great black leader

of Sao Paulo

 

In our series Black History around the globe, the story of Afro-Brazilian Luis Gama.

 

By Toyin Ashiru

Luís Gonzaga Pinto da Gama (June 21, 1830 — August 24, 1882) was a Brazilian Romantic poet, journalist, lawyer and a prominent abolitionist

Luis Gama was born in June 21 1830 in Salvador the capital of Bahia which in the 1800s was the most important city for the slave trade in Latin America. He was born to a wealthy white father who would later sell his son at the age of 10 to pay off a gambling debt and a free black woman called Luiza Mahn who was from the Nago nation located in Ghana. Although she had been snatched from Ghana, she had managed to gain her freedom by the time Luis Gama was born and was selling fruit and vegetables on the streets of Salvador.

Luis Gama never told anyone who his father was, but always wrote and spoke freely of his affection for his mother. According to him, his mother was both strong and vindictive which reflected in the fact that she refused to have her son baptised into the Christian religion, she was also known to be a great leader in several uprisings, and is famed for her involvement in the great Males revolt in 1835 where her home was used as headquarters. The revolt involved African Slaves who had converted to Islam and who went on to carry out a series of holy wars in the hope of erasing Christianity and also the white man, the revolt was eventually suppressed and rumour has it that when Luiza Mahan was accused of involvement in the revolt she fled to Rio de Janeiro, but know one knows for certain, what we do know though is; a young Luis Gama was later sold by his father into slavery at the age of 10.

In November 1840 Luis Gama arrived in Rio de Janeiro and was one of 100 slaves purchased by slave trafficker called Antônio Pereira Cardoso. He was to work in the coffee plantations of São Paulo but being from Bahia which had a bad reputation for insurgent slaves, Cardoso couldn’t sell Luis Gama, so he decided to keep him as his personal slave. Gama stayed with his master for 8 years on an estate and learnt how to read and write from a students who rented rooms on the estate. In 1848 Gama escaped and managed to prove that his condition was illegal to justice courts thus becoming a free man.

Once a free man he became a solider in the Urban Guard a military police force where he stayed until 1858 until he was discharged for insubornation, after this he joined the police force and progressed to be the scribe at the Sao Paulo Police Secretariat. He made the most of this job and got to know the legislation and how it was used, he then became a special type of lawyer which was called at the time Rabula (a lawyer without a degree) which was basically a man who made lawsuits on behalf of slaves against their masters. This job highlighted his extraordinary intellect and oratory skills which he used to help the defenceless, who were was the black people of Sao Paulo.

In 1860 Gama published a collection of poems in which he gained huge notoriety and fame for satirizing and mocking Pardos (The Brazilian term for mixed raced or Biracial persons of African and European ancestry ) who wanted to be white and sold out their black brother and sisters by denying their roots so they could join the elite, also poems condemning slavery, his love of black women and of Africa, and the African customs he had experienced growing up in Salvador from his mother and others, this at the time was un heard of. Even though Gama was also a Pardo he found great pride in his blackness and saw himself as black and was proud to have had such a strong and beautiful black mother.

The poems were entitled when first published Primerias trovas burlecas de Getuliano (The burlesque ballads of Getuliano) and the second expanded edition was entitled Novas Trovas Burlescues 1861

In 1869, he lost his job as a scribe due to his behaviour towards a judge who was reluctant to try cases for the release of slaves proposed by him. The dismissal was requested by the Governor of the Province but Luís Gama did not quiver. He replied: “I am honoured at the dismissal I have just received”. He was not only sacked but also sued for libel and defamation.

He took on his own defence before a popular jury and was acquitted by unanimous decision. After this episode, Luís Gama worked as a lawyer and a journalist where he scorned the values of the Paulista elite incompetent judges and the monarchy.

In response the judges accused him inciting rebellion by slaves, the president of São Paulo at the time accused Gama of confounded philanthropy and to much preference towards blacks in the country, this from a country that would later import white Europeans to whiten the country.

Gama was a hero amongst black Brazilians and asserted in articles and speeches that slaves should use violence against their masters if they had to.

Alongside the help of the Paulistano club and the masons. His work made sure that many Negro slaves were freed. His main resource was to use the laws currently in effect, that were not respected by the owners. The most important of these was the 1831 law that declared that any Negroes entering the country after that date would be free. By the end of his career over a 1000 slaves had benefited from his legal assistance.

Gama was also an exceptional journalist and founded Diablo Coxo (lame Devil) Brazil’s first lampoon magazine, which mocked the Brazilian elite also O Cabario he also contributed regularly to three other newspapers and magazines in São Paulo.

During debates over the free womb Gama called for an immediate end of slavery and the other throw of the monarchy, a lot of people in Brazil were very scared of Gama’s power and influence over black people and feared he would inspire blacks to rise to unacceptable positions of power.

His obstinate defence of the Abolitionist and Revolutionary causes meant that Luís Gama had a difficult life, almost impoverished yet he was a hero in Bahia, Salvador and Rio with activists naming abolitionist groups after him also a patriotic Battalion.

He died on 24 August 1882, of diabetes and his burial was a significant event in Brazil. In the city of São Paulo, which then had 40 thousand people, three thousand people followed the coffin of the abolitionist leader which included very prominent figures of São Paulo. The A Província de São Paulo newspaper published the following comment: “This capital city has never seen such an imposing and spontaneous expression of intense pain and nostalgia from a whole population, towards one citizen.” About Luís Gama, Rui Barbosa said the following: “The heart of an angel, a brilliant mind, a torrent of eloquence, dialectics and grace”.

 

South Africa:

New videos from Black Noise

 

Posted by Nomadic Wax on April 28, 2012

 

 

Black Noise (South Africa)

After over 20 years of beats, raps and rhymes, Black Noise is South Africa’s oldest active hip-hop crew. Hailing from Mitchell’s Plain in the Cape Flats (Cape Town), Emile YX? and the rest of the crew have been holding it down for over two decades, making new music and continuing their community work with Heal the Hood. Nomadic Wax was in Cape Town a few months ago with the Black Noise crew and shot two new music videos which are now available to watch online.

The first track/video is entitled “The Cape Flats, Mitchell’s Plain.” It is a fun party track celebrating an oft misunderstood and misrepresented area that is too often associated solely with organized crime, drug dealing, and gang violence. The crew, including founding member Emile YX?, are all from Mitchell’s Plain. As Emile puts it, “’The Cape Flats, Mitchells Plain’ track is an attempt from our side to dispel the general belief carried by local media that only bad comes from these communities. Media mostly tells the stories of gangsters and drug dealers when speaking of this community and in so doing keep people from traveling there. Thus keeping people divided post Apartheid.”

The song and video chronicle Emile YX?, DJ Thee Angelo and crew from their first break dance crew created in Rocklands (in Mitchell’s Plain) and how years later the Black Noise blueprint that was laid down has come to fruition. The video features young neighborhood b-boys as the next generation of South African b-boys, as well as House, an American dancer, who is the founder and director of Urban Artistry. Shot on location by Nomadic Wax’s Magee McIlvaine, the video chronicles the Cape Flats colored townships in Cape Town. The Afrikaans community has a particularly poor reputation in South Africa for gangsterism and violence. Some of the worst drug problems come out of these neighborhoods. Yet it is out of that context that Black Noise grew, in direct contrast to all of this. Indeed, they have never left the neighborhood. They continue to live in The Cape Flats and have done so their entire lives.

The second video is a b-boy jam, pure and simple. It is a celebration of South Africa’s vibrant b-boy culture which Black Noise helped to create. It opens with one of Heal the Hood’s regular youth workshops on Hip Hop, Culture, and Identity that they hold throughout the region.

Enjoy the visuals, and support the work of artists like these who have dedicated their lives to upliftment of their communities.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

– ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY

ON WOMEN AND WORK:

Editors Carolyne Wright and Eugenia Toledo invite women poets of all nationalities, backgrounds and job descriptions to submit up to 5 poems for an anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace. Send hard copies with SASE to Carolyne Wright, 13741 15th Avenue NE, #C-7, Seattle, WA 98125 USA. Email carolyne.eulene@juno.com or visit www.losthorsepress.org for full guidelines.

This anthology invites poems of women who have occupied spaces in the work force, and have contended with pay and promotion inequity, workplace harassment and intimidation, and all matters relevant to women in an increasingly globalized workplace, including the joy and satisfaction of work well done. Such issues may include instances of women’s employment advantages over males and other non-minorities—any preferential treatment of women in hiring and promotion, for example. How can women tell their workplace stories in poetry, and be agents of change, locally and globally, in these difficult economic times? Poems in English and in translation from any other language are welcome.

FULL GUIDELINES

1. Poems may be unpublished or previously published in magazines, anthologies, or books, but contributors must have the rights and waive fees for republication.
2. Submissions up to 5 poems. Please mail in hard copy, with your contact data in a cover letter and your name on each page of poetry. No need to include an SASE—we will email our responses, requesting accepted poems along with bio and statement to be sent electronically.
3. Poems may be originally written in a language than English, but originals should be sent with their translations.
4. Provide a 75-word bio in the cover letter, followed by a brief statement of your involvement in work on behalf of women.
5. Submission deadline: Labor Day 2012.
6. Submit work to:
   Carolyne Wright
   13741 15th Avenue NE, # C – 7
   Seattle, WA 98125 USA
   carolyne.eulene@juno.com

Calderdale Ted Hughes Writing Competition

Introduction

Calderdale Council and The Elmet Trust are pleased to present The Calderdale Ted Hughes Writing Competition 2012.

This incorporates the sixth Calderdale Short Story Competition as well as the Elmet Poetry Prize and the Ted Hughes Young Poets Award, both running for their fifth year.

The Calderdale Open Short Story Competition

Judges: Louise Doughty and Sarah Savitt.

• First Prize: £300
• Second Prize: £100
• Runners Up: £50.

Stories must be no longer than 3000 words.

Each entry for the Short Story Competition should be accompanied by an entry form and a fee of £4.

The short story prizes will be awarded on Sunday 14 October at the Calderdale Word of Mouth Festival 2012.

 

The Elmet Poetry Prize

Theme – Stages

Judge: Kathleen Jamie.

• First Prize: £300
• Second Prize: £100
• Runners Up: £50.

plus The Huddersfield University Yorkshire Prize will be for the best poem in the competition by a poet living in Yorkshire.

Poems should be no longer than 40 lines.

Each entry for the The Elmet Poetry Prize should be accompanied by an entry form and a fee of £4.

The prize for the poetry competition will be awarded on Friday 19 October at The Ted Hughes Festival 2012.

 

The Ted Hughes Young Poets Award

Theme - Stages

Judge: Andrew McMillan.

• First Prize: £100
• Runner Up: £50

in each of three age categories: 6 – 10 years, 11-14 years, 15-18 years.

Poems should be no longer than 40 lines.

Entry for the Ted Hughes Young Poets Award is free of charge, but each poem should be accompanied by an entry form.

The prize for the poetry competition will be awarded on Friday 19 October at The Ted Hughes Festival 2012.

Closing date for entries: Friday 6 July 2012.

Call for Submissions - Nearly There:

A Queer People of Color Zine

Deadline: 1 August 2012

Nearly There: A Queer POC Zine

What: Nearly There is a zine project meant to address the serious absence and silencing of stories about the experiences of queer people of color. For those of us who occupy the spaces of both queer and of color (along with all our other identities), this project is about creating an arena where we can listen and be heard, find commonality and difference, and leave a mark in the making of our own queer history and POC history.

Who: Knowing full well that for many of us, terms like queer or LGBTQ+ often do not and cannot truly measure who we are but being limited by the lack of other terms, this project is for, by, and about queer/LGBTQ+ youth of color including those of us who are low-income/working class, 1st/1.5/2nd/3rd generation im/migrants, city based, Mestiz@, Chican@, rural based, bi/multi racial or mixed, undocumented, same-gender-lovin, formerly or currently incarcerated, parents, dark skinned, from any spiritual background, college educated, butch, femme, aggs, street-involved, etc, etc, etc.

Theme: For this first issue, the theme is relatively open and inclusive of any issue, concern, or interest of queer POC. Ideally looking for submissions about in/visibility in queer and POC communities, discourses on coming/being out or not, finding and creating queer POC spaces, and more. Email me with your questions! Submit: stories, poetry, non-fiction (in any format), drawings, photos, portraits, essays, etc.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries/ submissions: nearlythere@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

The Koch Brothers – Exposed!

 

 

POSTED: April 20, 5:15 PM ET |

 

By Julian Brookes

Charles and David Koch

John Chiasson/Liaison; Robin Platzer/FilmMagic

 

If the Koch brothers didn't exist, the left would have to invent them. They're the plutocrats from central casting – oil-and-gas billionaires ready to buy any congressman, fund any lie, fight any law, bust any union, despoil any landscape, or shirk any (tax) burden to push their free-market religion and pump up their profits. 
 
But no need to invent – Charles and David Koch are the real deal. Over the past 30-some years, they've poured more than 100 million dollars into a sprawling network of foundations, think tanks, front groups, advocacy organizations, lobbyists and GOP lawmakers, all to the glory of their hard-core libertarian agenda. They don't oppose big government so much as government – taxes, environmental protections, safety-net programs, public education: the whole bit. (By all accounts, the Kochs are true believers; they really buy that road-to-serfdom stuff about the the holiness of free markets. Still, you can't help but notice how neatly their philosophy lines up with their business interests.) They like to think of elected politicians as merely "actors playing out a script," and themselves as supplying "the themes and words for the scripts." Imagine Karl Rove’s strategic cunning, crossed with Ron Paul’s screw-the-poor ideology, and hooked up to Warren Buffett's checking account, and you’re halfway there.
 
For years, the brothers shunned the spotlight. David Koch used to joke that the family business, the Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries – with annual revenues* estimated at $100 billion, it's the second-biggest private firm in America – was "the largest company you’ve never heard of." But when Barack Obama became president, the Kochs, like a lot of right-wingers, flipped out. They threw their weight behind a stealth campaign to turn back the president’s "socialist" agenda: They were early backers, some say puppet masters, of the Tea Party movement, and when the tea-infused GOP retook the House in the famous midterm "shellacking" of 2010, it was with a big assist from Koch money. (They later blessed the brief, ill-fated presidential run of Tea Party-favorite Herman Cain. That's how crazy – or cynical – these guys are.) Progressive activists and the news media started paying attention – most notably ThinkProgress and Jane Mayer of The New Yorker – and pretty soon the Kochs had become the poster boys of "the 1 percent" and a surefire fundraising tool for the Democratic Party; at the mere mention of the Koch name, liberal wallets fall open.
 
Now the Kochs are the subject of a blistering (but to all appearances factual) documentary by the activist filmmaker Robert Greenwald. Koch Brothers Exposed aims to show how the brothers' machinations affect the lives of "living, breathing human beings," as Greenwald put it to me at the film’s New York premiere in late March. "When I learned about the damage the Kochs were doing to our democracy, I wanted to make sure more Americans understood what they're up to."
 
On the evidence of Koch Brothers Exposed, the more relevant question is: What aren't they up to? The film – scrappy and low-budget, but effective all the same – weaves together a string of shorter videos produced over the past year by Greenwald’s nonprofit Brave New Films, each looking at a separate tentacle of the "Kochtopus," as lefty wags have dubbed the Kochs' network. It recounts how the brothers have:

 • helped fund efforts to undo a model diversity policy in the Wake County school system in North Carolina, effectively resegregating the district – part of a larger campaign, the film alleges, to weaken the public school system and prepare the way for widespread privatization;
• pushed voter ID laws – purportedly aimed at combating ballot fraud but really designed to keep Democrats from voting – through their financial support for the American Legislative Exchange Council, an increasingly radioactive business group specializing in the drafting of corporate-friendly pick-up-and-pass legislation for state lawmakers. (ALEC is also behind the insane "Stand Your Ground" gun laws at issue in the Trayvon Martin shooting case);
• pumped millions of dollars into more than 150 colleges and university in exchange for control over hiring and curriculum decisions, to ensure students will be exposed to the free-market fundamentalism of Ayn Rand, Freidrich von Hayek and like minds;
• bankrolled a coordinated campaign to swing public opinion in favor of privatizing Social Security, deploying Koch-funded think tanks, experts, and pundits to spread the myth that the program is on the brink of bankruptcy.

(Greenwald might equally well have documented Koch-funded efforts to repeal Obama's health care law, deny climate change, undermine collective-bargaining rights, or block Wall Street reform, but there's only so much a single film can cover.)

All diabolical stuff, from the liberal point of view. Of course, you might want to argue that even if the scale of the Kochs' doings puts them in a league of their own, they're just exercising their constitutional right to play politics at the platinum level, like plenty of other high rollers on the right (and on the left, for that matter). Which of course gets at the basic problem – the gigantic power of money in American politics makes a joke of our democracy. And, for sure, without ever touching the subject directly Greenwald's film makes a powerful case for campaign finance reform, by showing the malign sway a couple of rich guys with radical views can have over millions of lives. But Greenwald isn't just saying the system is rotten, or that the Kochs are wrong (though he is saying both); he wants to persuade us – viscerally – that these guys are bad.

He makes a strong circumstantial case. The film brings us to Penn Road in Crossett, Arkansas, a low-income black community where, by all appearances, the residents who haven't already died from cancer are stuck at home, tethered to oxygen tanks. Could all this death and illness have anything to do with the stream of stinking toxic waste water out back oozing downstream from the Koch-owned Georgia-Pacific plant? The residents sure think so. A woman named Dolores Wimberley sobs at the grave of her non-smoking, non-drinking 43-year-old daughter, who died of lung cancer, and says, "I feel that Georgia Pacific and Koch is responsible for my daughter’s death."

Koch Industries vehemently denies any responsibility for the cancer deaths in Crossett and touts its environmental record as "exemplary." As ThinkProgress and others have documented, it is not: Koch Industries has been named one of the top ten worst polluters in the country and found criminally liable in more than one pollution-related case, including one involving the discharge of (carcinogenic) benzene. And, wouldn't you know, the company has lobbied hard to prevent the E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde, produced in huge quantities by none other than Georgia-Pacific, as a "known carcinogen" in humans.

Greenwald lays it on a bit thick here and there, but that's kind of the point. "A lot of progressives really believe that if we can turn out one more white paper with bullet points about how to fix Problem X, we can fix it," Greenwald says. "But that's not primarily the way you reach people or move them. You reach the heart first. What I always try to do is make the political personal."
 
But you have to ask: Who’s going to watch, or even hear about, Koch Brothers Exposed?  The film isn't being released to theaters, since Greenwald reckoned few moviegoers would be willing to pony up $10 or more to see a no-frills documentary about a couple of oldster ideologues, however powerful or well researched. So to get the word out Brave New Films has teamed up with 40-plus progressive membership organizations and labor unions to form a far-flung anti-Koch coalition. The idea is that groups and individuals will hold screenings everywhere from their homes to bowling alleys, church basements, college campuses, and union halls. "The ultimate goal," Greenwald told Alternet, another partner, is "organize, organize — and then, organize." (Lefty activists are notoriously single-issue, but the all-enveloping reach of the Kochtopus makes opposing the brothers something all liberals can get behind: education, environment, labor rights, campaign finance, corporate malfeasance – everyone’s cause is on the line.) Available via streaming outlets and cable video-on-demand starting May 8, the film has the potential at least to reach beyond the choir into millions of American homes.
 
Have the Kochs caught Greenwald's flick? It has certainly crossed their radar. Google "Koch Brothers Exposed" and the first thing you see is a paid text ad that reads, "YouTube propagandist-for-hire dishonestly attacks Koch for cash." It links to Kochfacts.com, the company’s all-purpose damage-limitation website. A lawyer for Koch industries recently fired off a statement to Deadline Hollywood saying, "Mr. Greenwald's statements are maliciously false and misleading, and we urge the news media not to republish them," conveniently forgetting that the news media (from The New Yorker to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times) is a major source of Greenwald's information. The film maker is pushing back with his Top Ten Koch Facts and a busy media schedule.

Whether or not Greenwald’s film reaches its hoped-for audience, we can expect to hear plenty about the Koch brothers this campaign season. Obama and the Democrats are going to make the election a referendum on a Republican Party hijacked by ideological zealots, 1 percenters, and religious nuts – we’re a long way from hope and change here – and the Kochs make a handy proxy for two out of the three. Team Obama regularly beats the Koch drum in their fundraising emails, leading to an angry public back-and-forth recently between a Koch lieutenant and the president's campaign manager. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has been discreetly courting the Kochs, who backed him for president in 2008 and are said to have pledged to raise $100 million to defeat Obama. As Greenwald put it in a recent interview, Charles and David Koch "are going to do everything their money will allow them to do to influence this election negatively."

*Correction: This sentence originally stated that Koch Industries' annual profits are estimated at $100 billion. It should of course have read "annual revenues."