Against the Current. A Grassroots Initiative

A power plant will be built in Lambach in Upper Austria. A number of the country’s citizens protest against it. And record their resistance on videotape, capturing discussions, demonstrations, the occupation of the construction site, and the clash of arguments and human bodies. In the end, construction was completed, and the power plant went into operation in spring of the year 2000. The group gave their footage to filmmaker Martina Theininger, who used it to create a documentary of the resistance which the activists can examine from a distance of several years. Against the Current shows how the conflict divided a region, how members of Global 2000 were misrepresented as paid protesters, how police officers take brutal action against the demonstrators, and how construction workers helped with their machinery – and finally how one can protest courageously and without violence. A powerful documentary, devoid of natural lyricism, straightforward, unsentimental and without illusions.

There are a number of moments which clear up the relationship between the local population and the authorities, such as when the head of the state government has to fight his way through an angry crowd, or when a retired police officer who has joined the demonstrators exchanges heated words with a young colleague. A snapshot of globalization – or, as one of the militant locals described it: “A film about state authority versus common sense.” (Christian Cargnelli)