Out Of The Ruins opens European Commission democracy festival

We were pleased to be asked to “be” the opening event of the third Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival, hosted by the European Commission’s Science Hub. The event was a screening of Out Of The Ruins, introduced by Patrick and followed by a Q&A session.

Our work is intended to be constructively provocative. We want to empower reformers. And we want to enthuse and educate people to become more politically active. So it was gratifying to witness one of our films delivering on this objective. The post-screening questions, observations and discussions were well considered and wholehearted, across a range of important topics:

• The oversimplification, or even abuse, of ancient Athenian democratic principles by technocrats.

• The evolution (corruption) of democracy in Europe since ancient Athens.

• What happens to people’s movements like Unidas Podemos when they secure political power and become part of the system that they sought to rebel against?

• The idea of ‘vigilant citizens’ as being more crucial to democracy than ‘electoral citizens’.

• The importance of occupied spaces as nurseries for vigilant citizenry.

• How to properly integrate popular movements and their ideas into systems of governance. Including the idea expressed by Pope Francis that democratic structures need to unleash, ‘the torrent of moral energy that springs from including the excluded in the building of a common destiny.' (Paragraph 169)

Screenings and discussions such as these provide an excellent platform for our work. Our films are made freely available to people who wish to provoke constructive conversations about democracy. And we’re always happy to discuss ways in which we can facilitate and participate in such events.