Extract from Vizion Plus TV “Zonë e lirë” (Free Zone) by Arjan Çani, 19 June 2009.

AFMM’s AGGRESSION by Top Channel and Arb Security 18.06.09

CITY HALL PROTEST 180609 PROTESTA PARA BASHKISË

PRESS RELEASE AFMM 16 June 2009

Top Channel destroying bicentenary olive trees with bulldozers....

Today, on the 16 June 2009, around 9:00 am, bringing along a bulldozer and other equipment, Top Channel with the support of Jori Security (under contract simultaneously with Albafilm Ministry of Culture and Top Channel), without a construction or environment permit, started the macabre destruction of the trees and bicentenary olives in the premises of Kinostudio, at the ex-film lab building next to Marubi Academy.

This act was perpetrated, based on a Decision of the Council of Ministers which doesn’t permit constructions, but just the rent of existent surfaces specifying the obligation of not changing the destination of the existing objects land and building, and on a surrounding permit signed by Tirana’s Mayor and Chief of Opposition Edi Rama.

Despite the AFMM, civil society protest continuing from 120 Days, sometimes violently oppressed by and under the eyes of indifferent State and private police, the murdering of the trees, along with the vanishing of green spaces and the unicentrist betonisation, is today an aggressive cancer attacking every healthy cell of Albanian Citizens.

WE SAW HOW TIRANA AND ALBANIA DEGRADED DURING THOSE YEARS, IN THE NAME OF CAPITAL, BUSINESS, HOUSING, AN OSTENSIBLE DEVELOPMENT…

Today we can unanimously state, we passed from the bunker era to the concrete one.

But the Kinostudio is the historical place where Albanian collective memory was produced and stored. As such it can’t be the place of the contemporary concrete construction, same as the National Theatre and everything around it with the 2001 failed attempt of skyscraper concrete “modernization”.

Forgetting that it is a national necessity, the preservation and the care of “national memory” and of its representing institutions. One day we’ll have to show what we created and produced in this spot, it is today possible that only legends and myths remain as a witness.

AFMM was born in this territory as a continuation of this mission, that’s why we are on our right to preserve our academic facilities, as well as the destination of a space of European Emancipation of our country.

No citizen shall be subjected anymore to betonisation that is cutting the life’s breath, and should seek to meet all the rights of living standards:

dignity, clean air and not dust or cancer smog, non polluted water, where you see green spaces and not sad concrete, and when this ostensible citizen goes in his luxury apartment, will not feel bad by breathing the disgusting air of this city.

Pushed by those alarming destruction acts against the environment and its values, after alerting the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Interior, the Tirana City Hall, the Construction Inspectorate, the Municipal Police, receiving for only answer the silence, as only silence we received during the 120 days of siege along with State Police violence, the private security and especially the total INDIFFERENCE of the cultural public institutions as National Film Center, the Institute of Cultural Monuments and the Albanian Film Archive, located just a few meters where the physical violence and the environmental massacre, citizens, civil society representatives, university members of the Albanian Universities Consortium, representatives of the Albanian Filmmaker Association Lumière, and representatives of the legitimate land owners the Hysa family, will protest tomorrow 17 June 2009, at 10:00 am in front of the Tirana City Hall.

AFMM Public Relations Office

No Comment 160609

SOT NE PARADITEN E DATES 16 QERSHOR 2009, FILLOI PRERJA E PEMEVE NE ISHLABORATORIN E FILMIT PRANE AKADEMISE MARUBI NGA PUNETORET E TOP CHANNEL.

AFMM @ FREE ZONE (Zonë e Lirë)

FREE AFMM

The fence removal, by students, lectors, artists, and the original land owners….

No comment 110609 TCH & Government AGGRESSION vs AFMM part three

Stay tuned for more, tomorrow………

No comment 110609 TCH & Government AGGRESSION vs AFMM part two

Part three coming shortly… Stay tuned….

No comment video from todays TCH and Government aggression vs AFMM

Dear friends and partners,
In continuation of yesterday’s events at Marubi Film & Multimedia Academy, today, June 11th, the brutality and violence has escalated. Top Channel escorted by Jory Security, Albafilm private police, broke in the fenced territory of Marubi Academy with the intent to dig a trench and built a wall. As mentioned in yesterday’s announcement this wall would finally cut access to all the premises of the Academy, thus making impossible further continuation of studies and production in this film and multimedia school.
Rector Kujtim Çashku was brutally treated and some of the professors and students were seriously beaten up and suffer injuries.
The State Police was present but did not intervene, in this case of general non assistance to somebody in danger.

With all the students, teachers, artists and supporters we’ re resisting to this occult events we are inflicted from Top Channel and the Albanian Governments (local and central), from now 113 days.

AFMM News