A decade ago in the wake of Argentina’s dramatic economic collapse, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walked into their idle factory in suburban Buenos Aires, rolled out sleeping mats, and refused to leave.  Join us for a screening of The Take, an award-winning documentary by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, about a daring movement of Argentinean workers who occupied a bankrupt business to create jobs. A post-screening discussion led by Armando Robles and Beatriz Badikia-Gartler will explore how this simple act – The Take – turned the globalization debate on its head and how it was a precursor to today’s Occupy Wall Street movement.  

More about Civic Cinema

An exhilarating series of films, forums, and conversations, Civic Cinema uses the most exceptionally creative and engaging documentary films of our times to help communities talk about the most pressing social issues facing us. The documentaries we screen and discuss challenge many of the mainstream representations of critical social issues. Art, in this case, becomes a way of thinking about how history and truth are represented and a way of promoting media literacy.

More about our speakers

Armando Robles is president of Local 1110 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America in Chicago and a maintenance worker at the former Republic Windows and Doors factory. 

Beatriz Badikian-Gartler was born and reared in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has lived in the Chicago area for over thirty-five years.  Badikian-Gartler holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and teaches at various institutions of higher learning.  Her essays, poems, and stories have been published in numerous journals, anthologies, and newspapers in the United States and abroad.  She is a popular performer in the Chicago area and lectures often on women’s issues, art, and literature.  In 2000 Badikian was selected as one of the One-Hundred Women Who Make a Difference in Chicago by Today’s Woman magazine.  She is an Illinois Humanities Council Road Scholar and a frequent Newberry Library instructor.  Her second full length collection, Mapmaker Revisited: New and Selected Poems, was published in 1999 from Gladsome Books in Chicago.  Her first novel Old Gloves – A 20^th Century Saga was published in 2005 by Fractal Edge Press in Chicago.  Her art work has been exhibited at Robert Morris College, Around the Coyote art festival, and other venues in Chicago.  Her collages are available for purchase on her website: www.bbgartler.com.   

This event is sponsored by The Public Square. Co-sponsored by Portoluz and Prop Thtr.