PUSHBACK Talks

Most of us put our savings in a bank. But what does the bank do with our money? What if you learned that your life savings were being invested in companies that are burning down the Amazon forest or raising rents and evicting tenants from their homes? Would you care? Would you be willing to do something about it? 

This week the Filmmaker and the Advocate talk with Jakob König the Project Leader of the Fair Finance Guide - Sweden, an organization that exposes the role the finance sector plays in harming our planet and undermining human rights. Using a set of international standards, Fair Finance Guide investigates the investment activities of financial institutions like banks. If they don’t receive a passing grade, they inform the clients of the bank to provoke outrage and action. The results have been impressive. Under pressure from 5,000 clients, Swedish banks met with the government of Brazil and halted the burning of the Amazon forest for several months. So maybe we have more power than we think!   

Fredrik and Leilani see great potential in the model and wonder if it couldn’t be used to hold institutional investors in housing to account. And, if banks can be shamed into changing what  they invest in, might they also be persuaded to change their lending practices – where so much of the real damage is done? 

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

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This week,  Dublin’s Rory Hearne –  author, podcaster, housing campaigner and university lecturer – joins the Filmmaker and The Advocate to explore how big capital came to dominate such a small nation.  

The impact of the Global Financial Crisis in ’08 was particularly severe in Ireland, triggering a recession, a huge drop in GDP, high unemployment, and housing precarity. The government’s response was to save the banks by selling off foreclosed mortgages – of which there were many - to hedge funds and global private equity firms. Since then, these actors have dominated the housing sector, lured in by Ireland’s “tax haven” status. In the last year, 95% of new apartments built in Ireland were purchased by institutional financial actors. The impact of all of this? Rental housing costs have skyrocketed and have become unaffordable, young adults are stuck at home living with their parents, and family and child homelessness has become entrenched.

But we couldn’t end the conversation there. Rory picks up on our 2021 challenge to provide listeners with inspiration, detailing the actions and campaigns underway to pushback: grassroots campaigns against the selling-off of public lands, the emergence of a new tenants union, and growing energy to have the right to housing included in Ireland’s Constitution. 

Rory Hearne is the author of Housing Shock – The Irish Housing Crisis and How to Solve It and the co-host of Reboot Republic.  

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They're back. After a few months of living the pandemic lifestyle, the Filmmaker and the Advocate have reunited for an inspirational Season 2. This first episode checks in on the Monsters who hang with each other and play monopoly with our homes – Blackstone, Akelius and Oatly. The co-hosts provide news on the many ways and the many places that tenants and governments are ramping up their efforts to protect homes and rents --  a referendum in Berlin, a tenant’s rights legal victory in Denmark, a parliamentary motion to curb financialization in Canada. Despite the pandemic or maybe because of it – change is afoot. Fredrik and Leilani commit the second season of PUSHBACK Talks to keeping things upbeat and bringing listeners stories of protest and change as they unfold in cities across the world. Stay tuned!

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson & Maja Moberg

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In this concluding episode of 2020 – the Filmmaker and the Advocate go back to the cities where PUSH-The film has travelled and successfully helped to push back  against financialization – from its World Premiere in Copenhagen, to its North American debut in Toronto and a whole lot of places in between and thereafter. Leilani and Fredrik reflect on what they’ve learned about the necessary ingredients for social change – an excellent documentary, a committed advocate, grassroots tenants movements challenging the status quo, media holding governments accountable, and politicians who give a damn. Easy peasy! But the cliffhanger is … will PUSHBACK Talks have a 2nd season? Tune in to find out!

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson & Maja Moberg

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Nicholas Burton, his wife and his dog were living on the 19th floor of the Grenfell Tower in June 2017, when the fire struck. Nicholas survived, but his wife and dog did not. He’s been fighting ever since to ensure that the outcome of the fire is justice for the survivors and that his community can remain in Notting Hill, one of the most sought after neighbourhoods  in the world. The Filmmaker interviewed Nicholas soon after the fire for the documentary PUSH. In this special edition of PUSHBACK Talks – that interview conducted by Fredrik is reproduced in its entirety. This isn’t easy listening, but if you want to understand inequality in cities, and the many ways people are being pushed out of their communities, listen to Nicholas. A gentle soul, full  of wisdom.

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson & Maja Moberg

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The fire that destroyed the Grenfell Tower in Kensington Chelsea, London in June 2017 stunned the world. Located in the richest Borough in the world, Grenfell was a symbol of all that has gone wrong in housing for lower-income people. The Filmmaker and the Advocate speak with Grenfell survivor, Nicholas Burton, a character in PUSH who lived on the 20th floor of the building and who lost not just his home, but also his wife and his dog to the fire. The trio delve into the deep tensions in the Borough – where uber-rich investors are driving out residents who are part of the vibrant multi-cultural community, and where low-income people have little say in their own housing, let alone the future of their neighbourhood. Nicholas rounds out the discussion touching on the emergence of Grenfell United a group seeking justice for survivors, the ongoing government Inquiry into the Tragedy, and the cladding problems faced by many throughout the UK now. This episode just might bring some tears to your eyes. 

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson & Maja Moberg

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You know her from PUSH as assistant to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, but she’s come a long way since then! The Filmmaker and The Advocate welcome Julieta Perucca to the show in a warm post–PUSH reunion. She’s now a young leader making change around the world in her own right as the Deputy Director of The Shift. Fredrik and Leilani discuss Julieta's trajectory since the UN days and the important exchange of inspiration between mentors and those they mentor. Julieta and Leilani discuss The Shift’s first (virtual) human rights fact-finding mission to Buenos Aires, where residents are battling forced evictions, predatory mortgages, lack of access to basic services, and homelessness all in the context of crazy inflation rates, gross inequality and the Covid pandemic. Like all good podcasts, this one concludes on a note of optimism with a discussion of how the residents of Buenos Aires are pushing back, mobilizing, organizing and claiming the right to housing even in the most trying circumstances.


Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson, Maja Moberg & Melinda Bergstrand

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The Filmmaker and the Advocate are joined by extra special guests from Port Harcourt Nigeria – Chicoco Radio, made up of rappers and mappers, musicians, journalists, filmmakers and photographers. Together they discuss the harsh inequalities experienced in Africa's largest nation, particularly in the oil-producing Delta Coast – where erasure of communities and extremely violent forced evictions are a common part of life. The Chicoco guests draw parallels between their experiences of police brutality at the hands of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and recent protests and the Black Lives Matter movement. What makes Chicoco utterly special - as well as this episode of PUSHBACK Talks -  is their use of song in their resistance. They say -- in Chicoco we’ve all experienced forced evictions either first-hand or through someone we love. We’re singing for change … to push back the fear of demolitions, of bullets and of wounds. Here we go.  Turn this one up LOUD.

More from  Chicoco Radio at https://chicoco.fm/

Guests:
Grace Timi 
Tammy Uzodinma
IB Johnson
Michael Uwemedimo

Musicians:
Miebaka Kienabere - lead vox
Faithia Blaze - vox
Imanny Cleverstone - rap
Slim D - rap
Young Crown - rap
Denny Tunez - guitar
Bright Benjamin - cajon

Chicoco Radio Team:

Tech:
Osom Product
Promise Sunday
Ana Bonaldo

Camera:
Imanny Cleverstone
Tammy Fingaz

IT:
Kelex Maduewesi  

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson & Maja Moberg  

Support the show

Berlin - known for its hip vibe and affordable rents - has become one of the most sought after places to live amongst young urbanites and creatives. Those affordable rents, however, have also drawn institutional investors and asset management firms like Blackstone and Heimstaden, who are buying up mass amounts of affordable apartments with a view to reaping huge profits by increasing rents. But Berlin’s tenants are having nothing of it. The Filmmaker and The Advocate talk with City Councillor, Florian Schmidt, one of the characters in PUSH-The film about the vibrant and effective tenants' movement. Not only have they taken to the streets in protest, they’ve managed to make major changes – from pushing Mayor Muller to buy-back affordable housing that had been sold-off to investors, to successfully advocating for stronger renter protections such as 5 year rent freezes, and legislating the lowering of rents. Unprecedented. All advocates’ eyes should be on Berlin and ears tuned to PUSHBACK Talks!

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson, Maja Moberg & Melinda Bergstrand

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Since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, Spain has been ground zero for the financialization of housing. Blackstone, Cerberus and other institutional investors have plundered the social housing stock and gobbled up affordable homes. The Filmmaker and the Advocate are joined by Jaime Palomera Zaidel, founder and member of a tenants union and lecturer at the University of Barcelona. Jaime talks about the thousands of evictions of individuals and families from their homes every year across Spain, including during the pandemic. Out of this grim reality has emerged a strong resistance - a movement that has successfully defended housing for the people through direct action -  squatting and physically preventing evictions - and by demanding that political parties legislate better tenant protections. Prepare to be inspired and motivated!

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Louise Gustafsson, Maja Moberg & Melinda Bergstrand

Support the show