What kinds of hierarchies exist post #metoo? How can we structure authority in filmmaking so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past? And what potential does non-hierarchical filmmaking hold in disrupting patriarchy? Is truly non-hierarchical filmmaking even possible? (more…)

In the act of documenting, power dynamics emerge between storytellers, those whose stories are being told and the audiences consuming them. Filmmakers frequently take an authoritative role over the stories of others. This power becomes evident when their vision, as artist and author, conflicts with those sharing their stories, sometimes leading to decisions that compromise trust, cross ethical boundaries and, at times, put people in precarious situations. (more…)

Rojeh Khleif is a Palestinian film producer and cultural project manager based in Haifa and Berlin. He founded the Haifa Independent Film Festival in 2016, and acts as its director. The festival was the first of its kind that introduced films from Palestine and the Arab world to a Palestinian audience in Haifa. To this day, the festival continues to create a new cultural prism in the Middle East. (more…)

Transpose is an ongoing project that explores cross-hemispherical relations with regard to different tensions: the kinship, insertion, farming and impact of salmon; the anthropocentric management and manipulation of living marine resources, and the coexistence and disappearance of indigenous knowledge, from origin to destination in the contemporary context. (more…)

The video installation documents the approach to a foreign culture through the confrontation with Cuban everyday life and the Afro-Cuban religion that is firmly anchored in it. The important role of religious ceremony in human coexistence is as much a theme as the fusion of the present and ancestor worship. (more…)

Who owns the natural resources and who receives their profits? How do wage labour and exploitation shape our relations with the earth and our relations with each other? How does the acceleration of digital processes counteract the slowness of geological processes? The artist Regina de Miguel asks herself these questions based on the regions of Chocó in Colombia and Rio Tinto in Spain. (more…)

What does it mean to be radical? Is there anything like free will or are we living in a society where we are all infected by “normosis” and we are stuck forever? How can we respond to the climate crisis? Let’s find out where your own personal line between an acceptable radicality and something beyond your inner limits is! Let’s discover together how environmental crisis-induced anxiety is producing new rebels! (more…)

Advances in camera technology and filming on mobile phones have allowed migrants to film their own experiences in broadcast quality. How has this changed the way stories of, and about migrants are told in cinema? For decades, migrant stories have been a bedrock in cinema, but films have been beholden to the market gaze, catering their stories for the American and European public. (more…)

As contemporary crises manifest in the realm of the hyper-visible, there arises a need to scrutinize the interventionist potential of images imbuing the public sphere beyond their mediative function. In this presentation, I contend with the notion of “safety” and the ways through which it has been perceived and propagated through two Instagram profiles, that of Remie Akl, a female visual artist known for her “daring” aesthetics, and another page run by Egna Legna Besidet, a community of female migrant workers based in Lebanon. (more…)

Arts of the Working Class presents for the first time in Germany, with the kind courtesy of Terrassen (Denmark), the experimental films of Edward Owens: Remembrance: A Portrait Study (1967) and Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts (1968-70). In the midst of the preparations of its 18th Issue, Arts of the Working Class sees many layers of meaningful distraction and awareness in Owens’ films in regards to the notions of care in intimate and public spaces. (more…)