Autumnal greeting to all our supporters, friends and colleagues,

With the return of Occupy to London; the UK parliament’s (non-binding) vote to recognize Palestine and the thousands who marched around the world in solidarity with the people of Gaza; with hundreds of thousands of people around the world who marched for action on climate change ahead of UN Climate Summit in New York and not forgetting the Scottish referendum here at home – slowly but surely, we can take hope that tides are turning on some of the biggest issues of today and that civil society is finding its voice and its strength on many, often connected, issues.

On which note, here’s a quick round-up of Tipping Point’s projects.

Film: OPEN BETHLEHEM

Leila Sansour’s film Open Bethlehem was previewed on September 24^th to a sell-out audience of 720 at London’s Royal Geographical Society. It was an incredible evening – MPs and activists; academics and media all joined with many leading Palestinian figures and hundreds of members of the general public in giving the film and Leila, a standing ovation.
Melvyn Bragg interviewed Leila after the film and this was followed by a Q&A with the audience . Amongst other things, Leila was keen to share the plans for the campaign of the same name – Open Bethlehem – which has the Bethlehem passport at its heart. It was the most energising start possible to the film’s release in the UK, this Christmas and New Year.

Open Bethlehem Dates for Diary  
We are very close to finalising a release schedule with Picturehouse and we will update everyone (email and social media) as soon as we have those Dec/January Dates! The first UK Bethehem Passport Ambassador’s Seminar is scheduled for 8th November 2014, at Amos Trust, St Clement’s Eastcheap, London EC4N 7HB. More than 100 are signed up already – so do click on the link if you’d like to join us on the day to find out more.

Film: WE ARE MANY

… is THE story of people power, to be released in the UK early next year.  Our Doc/fest premiere and other private screenings since are indicating that the film will be a hit with audiences. Such was the level of enthusiasm at a recent private screening in London, that we unexpectedly raised a significant sum to go towards the UK release. The film was also recently screened in New York at the invitation of the Ford Foundation for a film industry and philanthropic audience, where Amir is starting conversations about the film’s release in the USA.

If you’d like to support the film’s release and outreach, let us know! Email Deborah@tippingpoinfilmfund.com

Event: BETHLEHEM UNWRAPPED

We were delighted to welcome a 3000-strong audience to our mini-Bethlehem UnwrappedFestival hyperlink to webpage at Greenbelt this summer which included music, dance, spoken word, testimony, poetry and Tom Pursey’s wonderful short documentary about B/U at St James’s Piccadilly.

Some UPCOMING event plans for 2015 include:

~ Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS).The next Bethlehem Unwrapped team project– an international event designed to mark the 10^th anniversary of the boycott, divestment and sanctions call by Palestinian civil society in July 2005. 

~ Halt to Fracking in UK: we’re also working on a project that will link films, cycling, trekking and FRACKING in Yorkshire.  We very much want to make a Tipping Point contribution to the anti-fracking movement in the UK, timed just before the next general election

Campaign:  THE FIVE PERCENT CAMPAIGN
Earlier this year we received a two year grant from the Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation as well as funds from a major donor to support the next stage of our military spending campaign. We are keen to take this issue to mainstream development and environment campaign organisations – we feel strongly that military spending is every bit as important to understanding the imbalance in relations between the rich world and the global south, as debt, trade, tax and climate change. Indeed, it is inter-connected with all of them and now more than ever, as the USA pushes for increases across the world on military spending – at a time of austerity. We are delighted to be developing this work with colleagues across the development, health, peace and environment sectors.

If you’d like to know more about what interests us on this issue, do sign up for our Blog.

Campaign: FROM PINK TO PREVENTION

There is a growing number of individuals, organisations and campaign groups who argue that the ‘pinking’ – or commercialisation – of  breast cancer has  gone too far and is preventing key issues being addressed, such as the role of environment and occupational risks. The film Pink Ribbon Inc highlighted the nature of corporate ‘pinkwash’; the takeover by business of a disease whereby  the public are asked to engage with breast cancer primarily through fundraising, via highly effective PR  campaigns.

In the coming weeks, as we conclude Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we will launching the campaign & website for From Pink to Prevention. Our aim is to raise awareness about the ‘barriers’ to understanding what prevention is; to ask fundamental questions about why environment and occupation are missing from the debate and why – most importantly – these links to the disease are so marginalised by the mainstream cancer charities and government bodies alike. If you’d like to know more about our work on this – or to get involved with our campaign planning – please do get in touch.

Both the Five Percent Campaign and From Pink to Prevention are developed under our TIPPING POINT NORTH SOUTH banner. TPNS’s main activity is our Film Fund, but increasingly, as we widen our non-film specific activity (events and campaigns), we are doing this as TPNS.

We’re always here to share more about our work in general –  do feel to drop us an email if you’d like to know more about any particular aspect of our work or if you’d like to support what we are doing.

Best Wishes from all at Tipping Point