About the films

Rene Vienet's "Can Dialectics Break Bricks?", promoted as "the world's first wholly detourned film", overdubs a run of the mill kung fu flick into the battle between the bureacratic forces of repression and the radical subjectivity of the proletariat. Think "what's up tigerlily?", but full of references to Wilhelm Reich and Krondstadt as the good guys convert theory into praxis in the form of kung fu fighting.

Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" is the film version of his book by the same name, and presents his comprehensive theory of modern capitalism and its concomittant spectacular forms of alienation set to images and music. Imagine a film which seeks to explicate such theses as :

The spectacle grasped in its totality is both the result and the project of the existing mode of production. It is not a supplement to the real world, an additional decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society. In all its specific forms, as information or propaganda, as advertisement or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life.

About the Red Emma's Project

We're working on transforming the now-closed Black Planet Books into a worked owned and operated bookstore, coffeehouse, and radical gathering space, with plans to open in a new location in Mt. Vernon in May. In order to make this happen, we need to both expand our collective with new members and raise money to pay our significant opening expenses. If you're interested in the project or would like to make a tax-deductible donation to help us out, come by before the films(doors will open at 7PM) for more information, or send us an email at cafe@redemmas.org.