This special curation in collaboration with Emergent Futures CoLab (@emergentfutures) unfolds a new mode of making and viewing films. Blurring the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, this selection of films pushes us to attend to the processes, ethics, and aesthetics of improvisation and collaboration. This movement - a new era of filmmaking layered with multimodality - invites us to engage with communities that are imagining and filming preferred futures around the world. Not only do these films center radical hope and build upon the playfulness of ‘ciné-provocation,’ but they also prompt us to act urgently in the face of rising local and global threats of all kinds. These films push us to engage with and mobilize alternative pedagogies of imagination to cope with colonialism, capitalism and climate change on an individual and community level.
Curated by Rajat Nayyar & Rana El Kadi (EFC)
I. Hopepunk
This ‘ethno-fiction’ selection is dystopic and yet full of hope and humor. The perfect pedagogical dose for coping with colonialism, capitalism and climate change on an individual and community level.
1. RECLAMATION - TJ Cuthand
2. GARDEN OF THE FORKING PATHS - (excerpt)
3. CALL ME BACK - Johannes Sjöberg
4. WHEN SLEEP ENFOLDED HER - Grégoire Verbeke, Amina Abouelghar
II. Filming at the crossroads
Promises, memories, generations and traditions. This selection looks at crossroads in family life where divergent paths are negotiated through the process of filmmaking.
1. AGAIN - Jan Stöckel
2. THE LAST OF ARGANEO - David Vázquez
3. SPACE WOMAN - Hadi Moussally
III. (De)Construction
This selection situates the viewer in an otherworldly time where construction workers are wandering through the forest and half-built homes are being taken over by the filmmakers.
1. PER VOI OGGI LA LUCE DEL SOLE NON SPLENDERÀ - Andrea Bordoli -
2. HOUSEWARMING - Effi & Amir
IV. Playful Dystopias
This selection invites the viewers to co-perform in their absurdist and playful atmospheres, where filmmakers and actors are speculating future possibilities of self-acceptance. Accompanied by a “climate spa” commercial!
1. MUSIC, SOUND, NOISE - Jared Epp
2. VICTIMS OF AN ANOMALY - Levente Huszka
3. SPA SYBARITE - Joshua Ashish Dawson
