PUSHBACK Talks

The Filmmaker and the Advocate are traveling again!

While traveling to Palestine on a research trip at the invitation of the Norwegian Refugee Council, The Advocate was confronted with her family history and what her parents call "The Palestinian Heartache." Her trip through the villages of Area C of the Occupied Palestinian Territories left her focused on the hope of a future where the Palestinian people have a voice. The Advocate also talks about learning to persevere in her work while while carrying sadness, and fighting with human rights.

All that, plus a week-long stopover in Pittsburgh to launch Fair Housing Month. Formerly a hub for the steel industry and home to jazz legends, the city's population has dropped by more than half in recent years, and the number keeps on dwindling.  The city has yet to fall victim to some of the more virulent forms of financialization - and the Advocate is hoping to keep it that way.

And where has the Filmmaker been lately? Listen to the end to find out!

*See Leilani's photos from her trip to Palestine here.

*Please note this episode was recorded in early April, before the religious holidays and prior to the recent violence that has emerged.

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This week the Filmmaker and the Advocate sit down with Member of European Parliament and the woman behind ‘My Home is an Asset Class,’ Kim Van Sparrentak.

 The EU Commission cannot make laws on housing, so Kim decided to write a report on all of the aspects where the European Union does have an influence on the housing market. While researching for the report, she came across Push the film and realized that – not only was there a housing crisis throughout many countries in Europe – it was happening all over the world and being fueled by the same factors.

And so ‘My Home is an Asset Class’ was born. For the first time, it’s down on paper just how big the business of financialization in Europe truly is – and it’s still growing. Fredrik, Leilani, and Kim talk about meeting with Blackstone, staying motivated in the fight against corruption, and the importance of addressing the issue at every level of government. What kind of world can we create if we put people before profit? 

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Leilani and Fredrik are back with a new live episode! More than 300 listeners joined live on Twitter Spaces to tell us how the housing crisis is manifesting in their corner of the world and how they are resisting. This time around we hear from listeners in El Salvador, Spain, England, and more.

 Want to participate in the next live conversation with the Filmmaker and the Advocate? Be sure to follow @Make_theShift & @Push_theFilm on Twitter and Instagram to receive notifications and to submit your questions ahead of the recording!

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/pushbacktalks)

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After a long delay, PUSH the film is making its theatrical debut in Mexico! To celebrate, Fredrik and Leilani sit down with four experts, each involved with the right to housing in a different way, to discuss how the issues of financialization, housing policy, eviction, and more manifest in Mexico, from Guadalajara to Monterrey. 

• Andrés de la Peña, a journalist from Guadalajara talks about his investigation into financialization in Guadalajara, “The Uninhabitable City.” (hyperlink)
• Alejandra Reyes, Assistant Professor, Urban Planning and Public Policy at UC Irvine walks us through her research on the ability of households to access adequate housing
• Human rights lawyer and Director of the Human Rights Centre of the Monterrey Free Law School  Carla Luisa Escoffié Duarte breaks down different components of the right to housing, and discusses how unifying these is essential to the full realization of the right.
• Silvia Emannuelli, coordinator of Habitat International Coalition, takes us through the work her organization has done on rent or mortgage payment problems and eviction amongst residents of Mexico City.

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As economies in the global north continue to grow, housing exclusion grows alongside it, creating greater amounts of inequality. More than 160 million people in Europe are struggling to afford housing, with more than half that number living in poor-quality housing. How is this problem continuing to worsen in some of the wealthiest countries in the world? 

 Fredrik and Leilani sit down with Sorcha Edwards, General Secretary of Housing Europe to talk about creating evidence-based housing policy in Europe to undo the mess that’s been made and creating an environment where young people can be optimistic about the future.

Produced by WG Film
Edited by Alexander Jemtrell 
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support - Kirsten McRae, Aune Nuyttens, Augustas Alekna, Ninnie Schelin

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It’s no secret that big medicine is big business, but the pandemic has made the intellectual property of pharmaceutical companies one of the most valuable assets in the world. From vaccine politics to surprise billing and revenue-based medical care, privatization of healthcare around the world has enabled financial actors to exploit the global health crisis to turn a bigger profit. 

This week we pick back up on Fredrik and Leilani’s discussion with Peter S. Goodman and dive into how the world's wealthiest have used the medical system during the pandemic as a cash cow, structuring our hospitals, senior homes, hospices, and pharmacies for revenue first and public health last.

Be sure to check out Goodman’s vital new book, Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World, available online and in stores now!

Produced by WG Film
Edited by Alexander Jemtrell 
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support - Kirsten McRae, Aune Nuyttens, 

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Class is in session – In this two-part episode, the Filmmaker and the Advocate sit down with New York Times correspondent and author of powerful new book Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World, Peter S. Goodman, to learn about the handful of billionaires that are dramatically re-structuring the world as we know it. 

In the two years since the pandemic began, the ten richest people on the planet have more than doubled their wealth, even while homelessness and housing inadequacy have increased at a rapid rate. And this isn’t just about housing, these people impact systems all over the world – health care, public health, sovereign debt, the list goes on. These billionaires hide behind a cosmic lie – that by giving them tax breaks and advantages everyone will reap the benefits – while creating the problems they are claiming to solve.

Goodman’s must-read new book, Davos Man, unpacks that cosmic lie by exploring who these people are and how they have manipulated laws and policies to uphold and perpetuate a system that proves, year after year, to primarily benefit the ultra-wealthy.

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Did you know that real estate constitutes a whopping one-third of China’s massive economy? The property sector has been used to drive growth and most household wealth is held in real estate. As a result, for years developers like Evergrande have had access to cheap money, enabling them to become small Empires.  

Recognizing that the situation was out of control, President Xi Jinping has used his "common prosperity" to establish new policies to limit the use of property as a financial tool. This latest round of policies has landed China’s second-largest property developer in a world of trouble. Now the world’s most indebted property developer, Evergrande is in debt to the tune of $310 billion and has yet to build over a million flats that have already been paid for.

Dexter Roberts, author of The Myth of Chinese Capitalism and former China bureau chief and Asia News Editor at Bloomberg Businessweek sits down with Fredrik and Leilani to delve into how Evergrande got to this point. Will the government bail the company out to prevent broader economic downturn? Or will Xi Jinping make an example of Evergrande to show that houses are for living in, not for speculation?

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At the conclusion of COP26 – the United Nations Climate Summit - the international community was divided on the conference’s final outcomes. Coined “the most exclusionary climate summit to date”, advocates, activists and leaders of developing countries were enraged by the dominance of wealthy nations and the watering down of outcomes, to benefit the economies of some countries while damning the future of others. 

The Filmmaker and the Advocate sit down with current UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, David Boyd, to discuss his outrage that the human rights implications of climate change and mitigation were starkly absent at the COP,  suggesting this will only lead to more anger, protests and litigation. The trio discuss the important links between the right to housing and the right to a clean environment, and how human rights infrastructure is vital for both. The Special Rapporteur is unequivocal in his rebuke of governments who allege they don’t have adequate resources to address climate change. Countering this negative narrative, David talks about the hundreds of examples of how climate change is being addressed at the local level, with scant resources but with a tremendous amount of creativity, courage and commitment.

Produced by WG Film
Edited by Alexander Jemtrell & Aune Nuyttens
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support - Kirsten McRae, Maja Moberg & Aune Nuyttens

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This week, Leilani and Fredrik are joined by listeners worldwide as part of their first-ever LIVE conversation on Twitter Spaces. We’ve all watched as the global housing crisis has reached a fever pitch in recent years; how has the right to housing struggle manifested in cities around the world? Listeners from Mexico, Vietnam, Canada, and more weigh in on the housing issues faced in their respective countries. What lessons can we learn from each other and how can we better support the right to housing both at home and abroad? All that and more in this week’s episode!
 
 Want to participate in the next live conversation with the Filmmaker and the Advocate? Be sure to follow @Make_theShift & @Push_theFilm on Twitter and Instagram to receive notifications and to submit your questions ahead of the recording!

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