Saturday December 22, 8 pm, Studio Beirut (Rue Gouraud, Gemmayze, red building, first floor)

Back in the eighties, right when the US were heading for a permanent void, REM came up with its classic song. Across the ocean, in Margaret Thatcher's darkest days, the Specials had just captured the whine of the times: Ghosttown became the anthem of a sinking generation.
There's something about the moment when the world as we know it grinds to a standstill. The future looks grim. Violence seems to be the only prospect. Yesterday was a mess, people said in Belgrade during the nineties. Today is even worse. Good that we have no tomorrow!
But just when all looks lost, there is this song, a book or a movie. It is bleak and desperate but it just cannot lie down and die. By saying goodbye to the world as we know it, it is already inventing a new one. It has to. There is no choice.

Chris Keulemans is a writer and journalist based in Amsterdam. He will be talking about today by showing clips from REM, the Specials, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Michael Haneke, Salman Rushdie, Sinead O'Connor and Lionel Richie.

Followed by the movie 'Before the Rain', Milcho Manchevski (Macedonia, 1994)