Arena Squatted

In the summer of 1976, thousands of Viennese occupied the site of the old slaughterhouse. According to their wishes, a youth, cultural and communication center was to be built there, but politics pursued other plans. ARENA BESETZT is a document of civil disobedience that emerged directly from the protest and today represents a central landmark for political film and video creation. Semperit Traiskirchen April 17 - May 11, 1978: In May 1978, Austria's only strike lasting more than three weeks since the end of the war took place at the tire factory. With interviews, photos, graphics and a panel of strikers, the film shows the course of the strike; it provides insight into the union's attitude between closeness to the workers and obligations to the employers. (FLORIAN WIDEGGER)

"The Arena occupation was a cultural movement, and it failed, as the film by the Arena video group quite rightly shows, because of the intransigence of Vienna's red cultural bureaucracy."