Info for non-Czech speakers:
More and more of us are struggling with the worsening situation on the housing market, namely with finding an affordable rental flat – and not only in Prague. Rental prices are on the rise, be it due to the fact that flat owners are only really interested in making profit or due to speculations with properties on the market. State support for the development of public housing is next to none. The situation in Berlin, the German capital, is no different. Nevertheless, a protest movement came to existence there, advocating for the right to affordable living for all, alongside the right for “a city for all”. It is this very movement that is followed by the Gertrud Schulte Westenberg and Matthias Coers 2014 documentary RENT REBELS – Resistance against the sell-out of the city. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the film director Matthias Coers.
Annotation:
RENT REBELS – Resistance against the sell-out of the city
BERLIN In the last years the capital has changed a lot. Flats that once were unattractive are now being used as secure investment objects. The transformation into owner-occupied flats and massive rent increases become an everyday phenomenon. The visible tenant protests in the vibrant metropolis of Berlin are a reaction to the growing shortage of affordable housing.
The movie is a kaleidoscope of the tenants’ struggles in Berlin against their displacement out of their neighbourhood communities. Ranging from the occupation of the Berlin town hall to a camp at Kottbusser Tor, the organised prevention of evictions and the struggle of senior citizens for their community center and age-appropriate flats, a new urban protest movement is on the rise.
A documentary by Gertrud Schulte Westenberg and Matthias Coers
D 2014 | 78 min. | German with English and Czech subtitles