[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/136378322[/vimeo]

This film is a chapter from the forthcoming feature documentary, Money Puzzles, a film about money, debt and the fight against austerity. Money Puzzles is conceived as a follow up to the filmmakers’ award winning film, Secret City. Whereas Secret City investigated a crucial institutional structure that was invisible to most and shrouded in secrecy, Money Puzzles focuses on an everyday commodity the reality of which is hidden in plain sight.

Nowhere is the reality of debt money more evident than in Greece right now. The tussles over the so-called bailout shone a light upon the institutional structures that underpin money and its relations. Yet that light seems to have blinded journalists from the mainstream media and their political counterparts.

To try to make sense of what is happening in Greece, the Global Center for Advance Studies organised an international conference, Democracy Rising, which invited scholars and activists from around the world to discuss the situation and what we can do about it.

Such events are milestones in the flow of historical circumstance we find ourselves in. The experiences not just of academics and activists but also politicians and ordinary Greeks found their way into the conference, transforming it into a vibrant, agonistic setting that came not only to reflect on Greece and its relations with Europe but also on itself as an event.

The conference of course cannot be isolated from the context in which it takes place, so the film weaves it in to the fabric of Greek society and the conflicts and contradictions therein, whether reflecting on the class divisions in Greece that present entirely different interests between the haves and have-nots, or solidarity networks that have emerged in the first instance to distribute necessary goods through non-market mechanisms, but beyond that to begin to build the sort of society​ that might grow out of the crisis.

We hope this chapter tells this story adequately. If you would like to support us to take this project to Spain, Ireland, Argentina and the UK, please consider even a small donation here.