Dérive

  May Day has its origins in the United States around the struggle for an 8-hour workday. At the time of the first May Day rally in 1886, work days up to 18-hours were not uncommon.  The struggle for a shorter workday had been going on for a long time. The Mechanics' Union of Philadelphia (considered the first union in the world – 1827-1837) was formed out of a strike for a ten-hour workday. In Australia the building trade workers raised the slogan "8 hours work, 8 hours recreation and 8 hours rest" and were successful in securing this demand in 1856. The fight for workers power is, and has always been, an international struggle against nationalism and borders.  1860s: In 1866, the National Labor Union (a grouping of 60 labor unions) put forward the first call for mass struggle to win a shorter workday. NLU leader William Sylvis was in contact with the First International in London, which called for the 8-hour workday in collaboration wi...

March 2011, a popular revolution erupted in Syria, seeking change after 40 years of despotic rule of Al Assad family. The city of Homs was called ‘The Capital of the Revolution’ for its youth’s great bravery, singing and dancing in the fame of army tanks. Back then, the elderly said to the youth: ‘You don’t know this regime, the country will drown in its blood before Al Assad Steps down’…but the youth were already beyond the point of no return.  Return to Homs is a documentary by Talal Derki that follows a group of young anti-Assad activists turned fighters, as peaceful protests start in 2011 and morph into civil war. Primary characters include the charismatic A bdul al-Saroot, a soccer star turned pacifist protestor turned armed fighter, and Osama al-Homsi, a journalist who was abducted by the Assad regime in 2012 and is feared dead. Derki says his film is " about the Syrian citizen who challenged everything and everyone to demand f...