Filmmakers perpetually face challenges from fundraising to pairing up with solid partners, managing post production details and legal requirements, and launching and promoting their final work, not to mention simple job security in a world of contract work. Filmmakers from the Global South and from underrepresented groups also face the colossal task of trying to shift well-worn narratives about their communities, homes, and lives. But we don't have to do this alone. One of the most powerful and simplest strategies to tackling these difficulties involves deliberately coming together to pool resources, share knowledge, and perhaps most importantly, provide intangible encouragement for each other's projects and cheerleading for each other's successes.
In this session, we’ll hear from members of different collectives that were formed in order to move member projects, careers, and companies forward in strategic and coordinated ways. What problems are these collectives trying to address? What methods are they using to do so? What have they been able to accomplish and build? What setbacks have they faced along the way? Most importantly, how are they setting up models for relationships that when replicated on a larger scale, will help us move towards a more just and distributed future?
Moderator: Pulkit Datta (Tikkun Olam Productions)
Panelists: Mohamed Ouma (DocA/East Africa Screen Collective), Laura Kloeckner (SAVVY Contemporary/United Screens), Melissa Adeyemo (Yetu Collective), and Ya-ting Hsu (Taipei Documentary Filmmakers Union)
Biographies (submitted by the speakers):
Mohamed Saïd Ouma is a renowned filmmaker, cultural operator and executive director of DocA—Documentary Africa. Mohamed is also engaged in "The African Heritage Project," a program which aims to restore fifty African films of historical, cultural and artistic significance. He has cut his professional teeth as a festival manager for the International Film Festival of Africa and the Islands (FIFAI) from 2004 to 2015 where he managed to coordinate support for the festival from the Municipality of Le Port- Reunion Islands and the national film governing body (CNC). His latest film, Red Card, premiered at IDFA 2020.
Laura Kloeckner is a curator and film producer based in Berlin. She is part of SAVVY Contemporary – The Laboratory of Form Ideas, a Berlin based art space and research platform where she co-curates United Screens, a project looking into alternative models for South-South film circulation. For SAVVY she recently co-curated a series of solo exhibitions in the framework of Berlinale Forum Expanded. Since 2022 Laura is a film producer and partner at SEERA Films, a film production company based between Berlin and Cairo. She is a seniour consultant for DAE – the Documentary Association of Europe.
Filmmakers perpetually face challenges from fundraising to pairing up with solid partners, managing post production details and legal requirements, and launching and promoting their final work, not to mention simple job security in a world of contract work. Filmmakers from the Global South and from underrepresented groups also face the colossal task of trying to shift well-worn narratives about their communities, homes, and lives. But we don't have to do this alone. One of the most powerful and simplest strategies to tackling these difficulties involves deliberately coming together to pool resources, share knowledge, and perhaps most importantly, provide intangible encouragement for each other's projects and cheerleading for each other's successes.
In this session, we’ll hear from members of different collectives that were formed in order to move member projects, careers, and companies forward in strategic and coordinated ways. What problems are these collectives trying to address? What methods are they using to do so? What have they been able to accomplish and build? What setbacks have they faced along the way? Most importantly, how are they setting up models for relationships that when replicated on a larger scale, will help us move towards a more just and distributed future?
Moderator: Pulkit Datta (Tikkun Olam Productions)
Panelists: Mohamed Ouma (DocA/East Africa Screen Collective), Laura Kloeckner (SAVVY Contemporary/United Screens), Melissa Adeyemo (Yetu Collective), and Ya-ting Hsu (Taipei Documentary Filmmakers Union)
Biographies (submitted by the speakers):
Mohamed Saïd Ouma is a renowned filmmaker, cultural operator and executive director of DocA—Documentary Africa. Mohamed is also engaged in "The African Heritage Project," a program which aims to restore fifty African films of historical, cultural and artistic significance. He has cut his professional teeth as a festival manager for the International Film Festival of Africa and the Islands (FIFAI) from 2004 to 2015 where he managed to coordinate support for the festival from the Municipality of Le Port- Reunion Islands and the national film governing body (CNC). His latest film, Red Card, premiered at IDFA 2020.
Laura Kloeckner is a curator and film producer based in Berlin. She is part of SAVVY Contemporary – The Laboratory of Form Ideas, a Berlin based art space and research platform where she co-curates United Screens, a project looking into alternative models for South-South film circulation. For SAVVY she recently co-curated a series of solo exhibitions in the framework of Berlinale Forum Expanded. Since 2022 Laura is a film producer and partner at SEERA Films, a film production company based between Berlin and Cairo. She is a seniour consultant for DAE – the Documentary Association of Europe.