PUSHBACK Talks

The Filmmaker and The Advocate are joined by Patrick Butler, The Guardian’s Social Policy Editor. The trio discusses current social conditions across the UK as it continues to be hammered by the pandemic. In the world’s 5th largest economy, poverty, hunger and homelessness have burgeoned. So much so, that Manchester United footballer – Marcus Rashford – has stepped in, using his own history of poverty and his current clout to urge the Johnson government to provide food support for children. Butler’s sense is that while the pandemic has thrown the health and the economy of the country into disarray, it’s also having an interesting impact where housing’s concerned.  He’s seeing the lowering of rents in some areas, and a real slow-down of the financialization of housing. It’s left the government in a state of ‘existential shock’, scratching their heads as the market fails to sort everything out. 

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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Everyone knows there is a global housing crisis. More grassroots movements in cities around the world are challenging unaffordability, evictions, inhumane housing conditions, homelessness, and the influx of big capital into the housing sector. To defend their interests, many claim housing is a human right, not a commodity. But what does the human right to housing actually mean? Getting back to basics, The Filmmaker peppers The Advocate with questions about the definition of ‘adequate’ housing, who has the obligation to ensure access to adequate housing, and is there a difference between the right to housing and the right to the city? Consider this a primer, with more to come!

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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Is the takeover of housing by institutional investors a conspiracy theory, or does the evidence support a global pattern? The Filmmaker and the Advocate discuss their experiences investigating the financialization of housing. No matter where they travelled, South Korea, Sweden, Canada, the Czech Republic -- all roads seemed to lead to a single private equity firm: Blackstone. Fredrik and Leilani discuss the problematic of “fake news”, and the need to continue to mine for the truth to substantiate human rights claims and to hold those responsible for violations to account. The episode ends with a lot of love from and for our patrons and listeners in more than 85 countries across the planet!

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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A special episode of PUSHBACK Talks! The Filmmaker and The Advocate reconnect with Saskia Sassen, prominent Professor of sociology at Columbia University, one of the world’s most important thinkers on cities, and a central character in PUSH-The film. The trio continue the conversation about why so many people can't afford their homes any longer.  Going to the heart of the matter they unpack Saskia’s powerful analysis that finance – which now dominates residential real estate – is an extractive sector, like mining. Once finance has extracted what it needs it moves on without a care for what's left behind. The conversation turns to a deep probing of the meaning and relevance of “money”. When money is used by institutional investors to create new financial instruments, or to leverage more capital is it still "money" as we know it or have we exited the domain of money?  The co-hosts wrap up by querying where the uber commodification of housing is going. Have we entered a new epoch where familiar rules and systems that might regulate financialization are thrown out? Will financialization eat itself up? Or will people who are pushing back force change?

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 language we use can clarify, empower, and even change minds. It can also create a club that shuts people out: if you speak the language, you’re in, otherwise, stay out! Financialization, markets, real estate, IPOs, assets, security …. The Filmmaker and The Advocate scratch their heads and stumble through the lingo they’ve come across in their journey to understand why people can’t afford to live in cities anymore. Defining the terms, Leilani and Fredrik expose how investor language bolsters the financialization of housing and erases the people who live there. But what happens when Fredrik and Leilani insert human rights language into the conversation?

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 upcoming US election is a big one and in California the stakes are particularly high. Not only will they be electing a new President, they’ll be asked to vote Yes or No on Proposition 21 - a ballot that, if the yes vote gets a majority, could pave the way for rent control throughout the State. In this episode of PUSHBACK Talks the Filmmaker and the Advocate chat with René Moya, the lead campaigner for YesOn21 and the Director of Housing Is a Human Right at AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

Rent control – which prohibits a landlord from raising rent above a certain percentage – is a hotly contested policy with huge significance in the Golden State, where rents are sky–high (San Francisco has the second most expensive rental market in the world), and where 25% of the country’s homeless population resides. But the YesOn21 campaign, Fredrik and Leilani learn, is up against really big forces, Monsters in fact. Private equity firm Blackstone (we can’t get away from them!) among others, have pulled out their wallets to defeat Prop21 and preserve their bottom line. Listen to find out more!

To find out more information about proposition 21 go to - https://yeson21ca.org/

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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This is a special episode of PUSHBACK Talks to mark the opening of PUSH-the film in [virtual] theatres across the USA. For the first time, The filmmaker and The Advocate invite a guest into the conversation. This episode features Aaron Glantz, Peabody Award-winning investigative journalist, resident of San Francisco, and author of the recently released book, Homewreckers which details the devastating impact on millions of Americans when vulture capitalists entered the housing sector after the Global Financial Crisis. Nobel Laureate Prof. Stiglitz provides a jumping-off point for the trio to discuss the cosy relationship between government, banks and private equity that ensured those with money would come out winners, and those without would have their dreams demolished. 
Fredrik and Leilani use this episode of PUSHBACK Talks is a wake-up call and a warning: the vultures are likely circling again, with 40 million people in the US who can’t pay their rent and nearly 4 million who can't pay their home mortgages.  

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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This episode of PUSHBACK Talks exposes what can happen when independent filmmakers and human rights advocates tell stories about multinational corporations causing people serious harm. 

The co-hosts discuss the true story of Fredrik being sued by DOLE, the biggest fruit company in the world, for making a documentary about the harm they were causing their workers. Fredrik's film BANANAS!* follows a court case in Los Angeles where banana workers from Nicaragua sued the DOLE Food Company for the use of a banned pesticide that made the workers sterile. Just as the film was about to premiere, DOLE came after Fredrik, his company, and the film’s producer, in a big way. Divide and conquer. Lawyers, media spin, a PR company, intimidating journalists, Astroturfing, scare tactics. 

Drawing on this experience, Leilani and Fredrik discuss freedom of the press, Blackstone’s reaction to PUSH, and the different ways in which independent filmmakers and human rights advocates can reclaim narratives, occupy public space and shift the focus back.  

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Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
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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

Students the world over head to university filled with hopes and dreams for the future. But to pursue those dreams requires secure housing and that’s where the nightmare begins. The co-hosts swap stories of student life in London, Lagos, Dublin, Seoul and Toronto. Students are working multiple jobs to pay the rent, lobbying for the right to sleep in their cars, experiencing sexual coercion, spending hours commuting back and forth each day and worrying about the debt they’re accruing. Just when they should be stepping into the world with energy and strength, they are being beaten down. Lower income students have less time to study and are leaving university with crippling debt loads, creating new patterns of inequality.  The Filmmaker and the Advocate discuss one of the central drivers of these conditions: student housing has become one of the hottest commodities around. It's being scooped up by  global vulture funds including … you guessed it … Blackstone. This episode will make you angry and should make all of us want to pushback so young people can dream again.

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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Golden Visas - backdoor entry into Europe for the corrupt and wealthy. Money can't buy you love but it can buy a passport!

In this episode The Filmmaker and The Advocate explore the dark world of Golden Visas which emerged after the Global Financial Crisis on the advice of the IMF and the Central European Bank as a way for economically failing countries to access big cash. Countries with Golden Visa schemes allow foreign investors in real estate to jump the queue and secure residency and citizenship. This has led to a massive influx of corrupt money into these economies, while inflating housing costs for local residents.

The co-hosts discuss the Cyprus Papers and compare notes from Leilani's investigation of Golden Visas when she visited Portugal as UN Special Rapporteur, and Fredrik's screening of PUSH-the film in Cyprus where everyone was expressing anger about how expensive their housing had become.

Golden Visas offer a different side to the same story: the uber-wealthy around the globe treating housing as a commodity, making cities less affordable. This time, with a crime twist, and important implications for global migration.

For more background on the #CyprusPapers, check out this Al Jazeera story:  https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/cypruspapers/

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