An EON Interview with Danny Glover, Actor/Executive Producer

As part of EON's ongoing mission of reflecting links between the Global North and the Global South on issues of planetary democracy and economic justice, here is a brief report on the San Francisco International Film Festival premiere of Danny Glover's new feature film 'Bamako.'

Danny Glover, Executive Producer and acclaimed African filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako have brilliantly teamed up to present a serious discussion of globalization, African "debt" and the World Bank in a lively entertaining film.

Bamako, set in Mali, shows ordinary people eloquently giving testimony sometimes dramatic, sometimes humorous, at a mock trial against the institutions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The courtroom is set up in the unpaved courtyard of the Mali Directors' family home in a poor section of Bamako, the capital of Mali. Colorful village life goes on amidst the tribunal backed by a great African music soundtrack.

The Mali people educate us here in the Global North on a subject we understand little of despite these U.S. based system's massive impact on every aspect of their existence, such as the 50 million African children slated to die in the next five years.

"We in the global North have got to become part of the solution," says Danny Glover. "These stories can begin the conversation with the galvanizing people's movements already happening in the global South."

EON was fortunate to have taped an interview with Danny at the premiere here in San Francisco, as well as the great panel discussion afterwards. Bamako is being enthusiastically received at Film Festivals worldwide and is including panel discussions wherever it is being shown. DVD release will follow the theatrical openings. (See partial transcript of interview below links}

Blip.TV link:
http://blip.tv/file/214607/

YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdePWvf-G2Q

EON was fortunate to be able to do an interview with Bamako's Executive Producer Danny Glover, internationally acclaimed actor and global activist, at the film's San Francisco premiere April 28, 2007. We asked Danny to talk about the political context of Bamako's plot: the situation caused by the structural adjustment requirements imposed upon the governments in the Global South by the Global North's International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Danny Glover:
"Bamako becomes part of the dialogue that is happening in the Global South and... in the Global North as well. [The dialogue] where men and women are able to provide testimony to their own experience as they're displaced, as they are marginalized and disenfranchised, by the structural violence that happens. That means that decisions are made without their having any input, without their having any say. The governments on a national level, and sovereignty to some extent, has collapsed in some degree. These decisions overcome the country, overwhelm the citizens and place them in a perilous position. That situation which we see exists right now.

"The film draws attention to that. We have to take the initiative right now... the initiative that we have lost and is somewhat subverted, we have to recapture that at this specific moment in time.

"And there are many actors, many people who are involved in that right now, you know. Certainly, we could look at Noam Chomsky, we could look at Walden Bello from the Philippines and the role that he's played in trying to articulate what is happening in the Global South. To understand in terms of Walden trying to articulate what is happening in the Philippines - not only in the Philippines, not only in relationship to Filipino history, and the conquest that occurred, but also in relationship to dictatorship, to failed democracies, etc, etc.

"So everyone is trying to articulate it... why the income and wealth became more and more skewed and why people become poorer and poorer. We're talking about Noam Chomsky, we're talking about Vandana Shiva, we're talking about many other people - Walden Bello - we talk about people who are in the quest, in the fight, in the journey for justice.

"I mention Walden Bello in this context because Walden has done so much work around this over the years. [ ] his work has not only been directly connected to the Philippines, he's trying to describe through his work, using the Philippines, to describe the situation as a global manifestation, and understand it as a global manifestation.

"If I showed this film in the Philippines, I would get the same reaction, if I showed this film in ... Brazil, I would get the same reaction, if I showed this film in New Orleans, in the Lower Ninth, people would respond to the film. So this is what's important about it - identifying what are the issues that bring us together, what are the tenents that draw us together? And have us understand that we are fighting the same battle whether that battle we're fighting is in Louisiana, whether the battle we're fighting is in Bamako, Mali, or whether that battle is fought in Manila in the Philippines."


For more information www.bamako-film.com/