THE FILMMAKER’S SOCIAL REALISM WAS ALWAYS SUSPICIOUS OF ESTABLISHED POWER ~ Bleart Thaçi ~ Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr died on 6 January at the age of 70, after a long illness. His body of work stands among the most severe and distinctive in late twentieth century European cinema, ranging from the early social dramas Family Nest, The Outsider, The Prefab People, Almanac of Fall and Damnation to the later landmark films Sátántangó, Werckmeister Harmonies and The Turin Horse. Discussion of Tarr has often centred on style and form, on duration, repetition or bleakness, yet his films were shaped just as much by a political outlook formed early and articulated consistently throughout his life. Tarr described himself, without hesitation, as an anarchist. In interviews late in life, Tarr spoke openly about his political formation during his final years of high school. He said that he identified with the far left, recalling that he no longer carried a school-bag, since Mao’s Little Red Book in his pocket was enough. He described himself as a committed communist until around the age of sixteen. What followed was a break rather than a conversion. He came to believe that the leaders he had been taught to admire were false communists, concerned with authority and control rather than emancipation. From that point, he distanced himself from communism as it was practised and presented to him. This suspicion of established power remained a constant. Tarr did not move towards liberalism, nor did he align himself with nationalist opposition. His comments suggest a settled distrust of political systems that claim moral authority while reproducing hierarchy. In later public appearances, he spoke sharply about the historical record of communism, at one point remarking that he had never seen a good communist. His political views were shaped as much by circumstance as by ideology, and when plans to study philosophy fell through he went to work at the Óbuda shipyards. Living and working among industrial labourers informed what he later called his social cinema. His earliest films emerged from the Budapest School and the Béla Balázs Studio, an experimental and semi-underground environment that favoured small budgets, amateur equipment and non professional actors. These films focused on housing shortages, unstable employment, the pressure of economic conditions on personal relationships or the wear of poverty on everyday relations. Tarr spoke of being close to working class people and of wanting to record daily life as it was, rather than impose symbolic narratives. Frame from Satantango He often explained that his turn to filmmaking came from frustration with cinema itself. Films, he said, were full of false stories that bore little resemblance to lived experience. Making films became a way of showing conditions as they were, without embellishment or instruction. This approach extended to his working methods. He avoided professional polish, relied on non actors, and resisted narrative forms that dictated meaning from above. These choices reflected a broader opposition to authority rather than an attempt to promote a fixed political programme. As his career developed, Tarr became more outspoken about contemporary politics. He was an atheist and a consistent critic of nationalism. In a 2016 interview, he described Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and Marine Le Pen as national shames, framing his criticism in explicitly moral terms. His denunciation of nationalism was especially pointed in the Hungarian context (under the aforementioned prime minister), where he became an outspoken critic of the state’s handling of migration and asylum. During the European migration crisis, Tarr wrote a statement that was displayed near a pro-migration exhibition in front of the Hungarian Parliament. “We have brought the planet to the brink of catastrophe with our greediness and our unlimited ignorance… Now, we are confronted with the victims of our acts.” In it, he argued that Europe had helped bring about global catastrophe through greed, ignorance and wars waged for exploitation. He then asked what kind of morality was being defended when fences were built to keep out people displaced by those same actions. In his final years, Tarr continued to speak out publicly, even as his health declined. In December 2023, he was among a group of filmmakers who signed an open letter (alongside Pedro Costa, Aki Kaurismäki, Claire Denis, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Christian Petzold, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhangke, etc.) calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the killing of civilians, the establishment of humanitarian corridors, and the release of Israeli hostages. To remember Béla Tarr is to remember a filmmaker for whom politics was neither decorative nor secondary. His anarchism was not a posture but an orientation that shaped how he lived, how he worked and how he spoke. It remains present in his films as a cinema that refuses obedience, legitimacy, or consolation in the face of power. The post Béla Tarr (1955-2026) appeared first on Freedom News.

OTHER EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS HAVE REFUSED TO HONOUR EXTRADITION REQUESTS FROM HUNGARY FOR ANTIFASCIST ACTIVISTS, CITING CONCERNS FOR THEIR SAFETY AND WELLBEING ~ punkacademic ~ Antifascist Maja T today began a hunger strike protesting their treatment by Hungarian judicial authorities since their extradition from Germany last year. Whilst in custody in Hungary, Maja, who identifies as non-binary, has been subjected to inhumane conditions, including several months of constant video surveillance, persistent solitary confinement, and ‘intimate searches’ during which they have been forced to undress. Visits have been sporadic, food has been inadequate, and their cell is plagued with bedbugs and cockroaches. Maja has been in pretrial detention in Hungary since June 2024. In a statement released by the Budapest Antifascist Solidarity Committee they stated they are “no longer prepared to endure this intolerable situation and wait for a decisions from a justice system that has systematically violated my rights over last few months”. Maja was due to receive a judicial ruling on Wednesday (4th June) as to whether their pretrial detention would be converted to house arrest, only for the hearing to be postponed until the 20th, triggering the decision to go on hunger strike. Maja’s extradition was based on a European Arrest Warrant issued by Hungarian authorities for an alleged attack on neo-Nazis at the far-right ‘Day of Honour’ commemoration in Budapest in 2023. The event is an annual commemoration of an attempt by members of the Waffen-SS and Hungarian collaborators to break a Red Army siege towards the conclusion of the Second World War. Maja was extradited despite the intervention of the German Federal Constitutional Court, which had concerns with regard to Maja’s potential treatment. The extradition was initially ruled on by the Berlin regional court, with the German authorities expediting Maja’s transfer before the Federal Constitutional Court was able to rule on an injunction. In January, Maja was offered a plea deal carrying a fourteen year jail sentence. As it stands, they face up to twenty-four years in prison. Maja’s arrest, extradition, and current plight exist in a context of a clampdown on antifascist action in Germany, particularly in the East. Maja was pursued by the SoKo LinX taskforce of the Saxon Criminal Police, and transferred in the middle of the night despite a pending injunction, with the attendance of riot police and counter-terrorism officers despite (as the Saxon authorities later admitted) no credible threat. Other European governments have refused to honour extradition requests from Hungary for antifascist activists, citing concerns for their safety and wellbeing. Hungary’s persecution of the LGBTQ+ community was today condemned by a senior legal scholar at the European Court of Justice. Hungary in 2022 was downgraded by the EU Parliament from a democracy to an authoritarian state, but continues to have access to the European Arrest Warrant system. These wider concerns are echoed by Maja, who in their declaration concluded that “no more people should be extradited to Hungary”. A further activist, Zaid from Nuremberg, remains under threat of extradition. The post Antifascist Maja T. on hunger strike to protest “inhumane” prison conditions appeared first on Freedom News.

A WINDING DISCUSSION STARTS WITH CHINA’S DEEPSEEK AND ITS IMPACT ON US DOMINANCE IN THE SPHERE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. We then move on to Belarus, the Hungarian pursuit of anti-fascists, and the ineffectiveness of liberal governments in holding back fascism (again) before rounding off with some discussion on the fight against high speed rail in France. The post Anarchist News Review: Cheap AI panic, Extremism (un)defined and Water palavers appeared first on Freedom News.

OFFICIAL LETTER REVEALS EXTENT AND SPEED OF OPERATION TO EXTRADITE QUEER ANTIFASCIST TO HUNGARY, DESPITE INJUNCTION APPEAL ~ Kit Dimou ~ The authorities in the German state of Saxony “could hardly wait to extradite” antifascist activist Maja T to queer-hostile and authoritarian Hungary, say supporters. According to responses received from the Saxon State Ministry of the Interior, and published by the Anarchist Black Cross, the authorities went into expensive and elaborate cooperation over the extradition, despite an application for a temporary injunction,  of this order final appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court. According to ABC Dresden, “It is reasonable to assume that this personnel effort was primarily aimed at extraditing Maja as quickly as possible and without attracting attention, leaving neither room nor time for interruptions”. Maja T faces 24 years imprisonment in Hungary. The non-binary activist was arrested in Berlin in December 2023, and charged for allegedly forming a “criminal organisation”, in connection with attacks on a neo-Nazi rally in Budapest in February 2023. They were held in extradition custody in Dresden prison before being taken across the border on 28 June in what supporters called a “night and fog” operation. The letter reveals that the Saxony Interior Ministry Police (LKA) “and the originally responsible Berlin authorities…have been in close contact…since the arrest of the person concerned”. For the extradition itself, it also provided so-called “external forces” including riot police and the anti-terror department (!) of the Saxony police. Despite alleged “danger aspects” and “expected disruptions to the extradition”, the and they openly admit that there was “no concrete evidence of an actual threat situation.” “Maja’s extradition is by no means legally motivated and justified, but exclusively politically motivated”, said supporters, citing “the unbelievable extent of personnel and official cooperation and at this speed”, even overlooking an urgent application with the Federal Constitutional Court. “The authorities were aware of the urgent application and knew that the outcome of the application was uncertain. They therefore deliberately decided to ignore it and deport Maja in the middle of the night”, said ABC Dresden, “Thus, the repression against anti-fascism in Maja’s case in Germany reached new, monstrous proportions overnight and just like that”. The post Maja T deportation: Saxony police mobilised anti-terrorist forces with “no concrete evidence” appeared first on Freedom News.