How can we use methods of irritation and confrontation within our filmmaking practice to irritate the status quo and show that there are more ways of being in and experiencing the world than covered within normative narratives? How do we keep a high level of sensitivity within the work together with protagonists when working on sensitive topics? How can we thematize sensitive topics like home and belonging in film by showing the struggles of locating one’s own identities in a binary, racial social system? 

We will get a first insight in how queering the approach to shooting ‘Other’ can be used to re-design normative research methods, making them more inclusive, innovative, and empathic, and how this can impact the ethics and authenticity of the whole film. 

Taking a closer look to the film of filmmaker Humad Nisar we will also get the opportunity to learn from Humad’s experiences, who will share insights and material from the directors work on the film HOME SWEET HOME. In this film project participatory methods were experimented with over three years. To accumulate the sensuality of a place like home, the film uses sensory and psychedelic ethnographic film methods to create haptic visuals for the viewer rather than passive participation. 

We highly recommend the participants to take part in the film screening of HOME SWEET HOME on 15th of May. Humad Nisar, together with Sabah Jalloul, is giving another workshop on Collaborative Filmmaking - Why relationship matters.

Humad Nisar (any pronoun) is a visual anthropologist based in Germany, born and raised in Pakistan. Currently, Humad is working on conducting queer and migration film workshops for the BIPOC youth in Germany. Humad Nisar conducts film workshops to make filmmaking accessible for everyone by producing films shot on their mobile phones. Humad uses participatory collaborative and autoethnographic filmmaking methods in art activism to decolonise narrative filmmaking when stories are told by the BIPOC/Queer people themselves. Queer displacements, kinship, and identity are research themes in the artist’s work. Humad’s debut film, HOME SWEET HOME, explores how queer people of Pakistani origin related to the idea of ‘home’. It is a semi-autoethnographic, participative collaborative theoretical and media project. 

The Workshop will be held in English.