Origin: Canada | Documentary | Director: Julian Samuel | 80 minutes

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Save and burn

Julian Samuel 2004 docu 80 min.

Generally considered guardians of culture, Save and Burn reveals how
libraries are subject to the ideologies of their time and place - and not
above them, as might be assumed. The film assays the commercialization of
libraries, the irresponsible weeding and closing of libraries, the excesses
of copyright law, but most of all, the fact that the West has not
recognized the Orient for much of its cultural heritage. Historically,
libraries have been used to promote or inhibit democratic debate, and
Samuel's extraordinary interviews with an immense range of senior
librarians and collectors extends here to a discussion of the impact of the
Patriot Act on the politics and surveillance which inflect libraries in the
US today. This strikingly shot and intellectually commanding work includes
exquisite footage of the Alexandrian Library, the Library of Trinity
College, Dublin, and Bromley House in Nottingham. The second half of the
film includes painful and expert accounts of the calculated destruction of
libraries and cultural infrastructure in Palestine and Iraq in recent years
by Israeli and US led occupying forces.

Full feature: https://www.julianjsamuel.com/films/save-and-burn/
(two parts)

https://player.vimeo.com/video/32769745??title=0&byline=0&portrait=0 (part 1)
https://player.vimeo.com/video/32786073??title=0&byline=0&portrait=0 (part 2)

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View trailer