The Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, in collaboration with Oxfam Italia, Collettivo GKN, and ARCI Prato, presents The Cost of Growth, an event combining film screening and public discussion to question the contradictions of today’s development model and explore the alternatives already being put into practice by civil society across Europe.
Program
- 8:30 pm – Screening of the documentary The Cost of Growth (93’) by Thomas Maddens, produced by Voice Over Foundation ETS
- 10:00 pm – Talk with the participation of the authors and producers of the documentary, representatives of Collettivo GKN, Oxfam Italia, and ARCI Prato
Uncontrolled extraction of natural resources, labor exploitation, climate crisis, arms race, genocides. Is there an end to this escalation? Is there a possible alternative? Or must we resign ourselves to the status quo?
The Cost of Growth tells the story of the part of civil society across Europe that refuses to give in. Movements, collectives, and communities that not only reject the cosmetic solutions proposed by institutions, but are actively building new socio-economic practices based on cooperation, solidarity, and justice.
The documentary connects very different local struggles: against large mining projects in Serbia, for the democratization of labor in Italy, and against the colonization of Sámi land in Norway. Different fronts, but the same demand for justice, democracy, and freedom.
The filmmakers’ journey also reaches Campi Bisenzio, where they document the experience of the former GKN factory workers’ collective. After being abruptly dismissed by the company’s foreign financial owners, the workers responded by imagining a new industrial plan based on ecological conversion: producing cargo bikes and photovoltaic panels to serve local energy communities. An idea of a factory serving the common good—not the war economy, but the green economy.
As the film reminds us, “we live in the shadow of the world we could have”: imagining different futures is not only necessary, but possible.