Today from 17:00-20.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will host their weekly screening in the University Theatre! This week's film is Matewan (John Sayles, 1987) with an introduction by Radical Organization of Students Amsterdam (ROSA).

Released in 1987 after nearly a decade of brutal retaliation to growing union power in the 1970s by the Reagan and Thatcher governments, Matewan looks to early 20th Century US labour history for both inspirational and cautionary lessons about organising. John Sayles shot the film as an alternative Western, harnessing and subverting tropes from American cinema’s most individualistic genre to tell a story of collective life and power in an Appalachian coal mining community. Based on true events, Matewan is an accessible exploration of solidarity and radical organisation, from internal struggles like racism and sexism, to external violence from the capitalist alliance of mining company and state.

Though the film was a commercial flop on release, it gained enough critical acclaim to warrant a Criterion edition in 2019. Whatever its box office take in 1987, Matewan appears now as a forgotten classic, with an incredible cast of recognisable character actors like Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, and David Strathairn. It raises questions about the need for, and desperate lack of, mainstream pro-union cinema (across the West but especially in the United States) Every year the need for such art grows. As Dutch workers push for strikes across higher education, against genocide and the slashing of university budgets, films like Matewan are vital tools for mass education, inspiration, and mobilisation.

ROSA is a marxist student activist organization with members from universities across Amsterdam. Our focus is building the base for class struggle within student circles through protest, educational events, fundraisers, and other community-building activities.