Ninety people attended a showing [in association with Sheffield Indymedia] at the Showroom Cinema of Unprecedented: the 2000 Presidential Election. As the name implies, this is a documentary about the chicanery, deceipt and fraudulent behaviour of the rich and [mostly] Republican around the infamous "too close to call" election in the self-styled "great state of Florida".
Attendees were lucky to have Rick Pérez the film's co-writer and co-producer in attendance and introducing the screening. After the riveting documentary, Rick fielded questions from 40 members of the audience who hung around afterwards for about an hour.
The story is too long to go into here. The bobbings and weavings of Jeb and Dubya Bush, Warren Christopher, supposedly impartial state election officials et al, tell the tale well enough.
So impressions instead: I found myself in an unusual position while watching: I'm an anarchist and don't believe in parliamentary democracy, but still found myself becoming more and more furious as the story unfolded. That the film could ellicit this response in me about something which I care little about is evidence that this a fine piece of film-making. In a sense the machinations of the career politicians is just a frame to hang this story on -- I think the film's main theme is really the utter contempt, that both the party political and [state and federal] bureacratic apparatuses, hold for the wishes and aspirations of working and oppressed people. Not one of these bunch of criminals had the supposedly sacrosanct vision of "democracy" at the forefront of their thinking or activity.
For more information on Unprecedented, visit their website. The film started as an Los Angeles-Indymedia project and is an excellent example of "becoming the media". If you didn't manage to get to the Showroom, never fear -- Sheffield-Indymedia now have a video copy of this film [kindly donated by Rick]. If you would like to arrange a showing contact Sheffield Indymedia.
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