{"id":314053,"date":"2026-03-05T09:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T09:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/314053\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T09:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T09:36:07","slug":"breaking-social-review-rutger-bregman-leads-an-irresistible-rallying-cry-for-global-activism-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/314053\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Social review \u2013 Rutger Bregman leads an irresistible rallying cry for global activism | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bicycling Dutch historian Rutger Bregman<\/a> does not identify as an optimist. He says that optimism makes people lazy, complacent that history is going in the right direction. Instead he describes himself as a \u201cpossibilist\u201d, a believer in the possibility that things can be different. Bregman is interviewed in this film about corruption, kleptocracy and structural inequality. The director is documentary-maker Fredrik Gertten who travels the world meeting activists who have had enough.<\/p>\n

First, the cold hard facts. Journalist and corruption expert Sarah Chayes, a former adviser to the Obama administration, does an impressive job summarising her analysis of global kleptocracy. In Malta, the son of the murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia<\/a>, killed after exposing corruption at the highest levels of government, investigates the new scandal of \u201cgolden passports\u201d<\/a>. The film\u2019s main focus is activism in Chile and the US. Amazon workers in New York unionise (and have a good laugh at their boss Jeff Bezos\u2019s trip to space). In Chile, feminists march and climate activists go into battle against mining companies responsible for drought.<\/p>\n

The list goes on. An American school teacher organises strikes; an indigenous 21-year-old becomes Chile\u2019s youngest ever politician. If there is criticism of Breaking Social it is that it jams too many stories together; each one has enough material for a standalone film. But its energy and sense of possibilism is infectious \u2013 and historian Bregman is a joy, with his cuddly nuggets of wisdom. Take evolution: we need to rethink survival of the fittest, he says. The ice age was more about survival of the friendliest. Getting by was a snuggle for survival. Without friends to keep you warm, you wouldn\u2019t survive for long.<\/p>\n

Breaking Social is in UK and Irish cinemas from 6 March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bicycling Dutch historian Rutger Bregman does not identify as an optimist. He says that optimism makes people lazy,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-314053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}