Manchester Film Co-op and Manchester Zapatista Solidarity Group invite to a showing of Patricio Guzman’s award winning documentary Salvador Allende, followed by a debate on ‘ethics and politics’, from below and from the Left, 42 years after the first state-run implementation of neoliberal ideology.

The military coup against the Popular Unity government in Chile initiated General Pinochet’s long reign of terror, and it was also one of the first take-overs of state power by governments that then implemented neoliberal policies. It did take a coup and a reign of terror to stop Salvador Allende’s grassroots-orientated politics of democratic socialism. Allende’s Popular Unity brought together the diverse forces from the Chilean Left in the joined effort to build a society where justice, democracy and freedom formed part of the experience of everyone, not only a few.

Filmmaker Patricio Guzman, director of The Battle of Chile and Nostalgia for the Light, portrays the life, times and political formation of Salvador Allende who ran unsuccessfully for President three times before finally being elected in 1970. The film focuses on the long – and successful – struggle to unite the Chilean Left, and on the three years following Allende’s election, when his government nationalized large-scale industries and began an agrarian reform program. Allende argued for an international framework to control the growing power of multinational companies.

A collaboration of Manchester Film Co-op and Manchester Zapatista Solidarity Group.

11th September 2012 at 7.45pm, On The Eighth Day Café.

Admission is free.