Saturday 18.02, 3:15 pm – 4:30 pm

Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung Stresemannstraße 90, 10963 Berlin

Only with EFM accreditation

In the last year, the film festival community has been shaken to its core by calls from filmmakers and industry alike for more responsible, ethical, and transparent curatorial practices. And while many legacy institutions continue to resist progress, programmers of colour, community-rooted film festivals, and new distribution initiatives have for years been advancing justice-centered programming practices, responsibly uplifting stories about historically marginalized communities, and are designing the future of film curation.
In this session, led by Karim Ahmad (Writer and Founder, Restoring the Future) and featuring Jemma Desai (Programmer and Writer, “This Work Isn’t For Us”), Can Sungu (Co-Founder & Artistic Director, Sinema Transtopia), Lucy Mukerjee (Co-Founder of the Programmers of Colour Collective) and Tambay Obenson (Founder and CEO, Akoroko), we will unveil a new fieldwide curatorial justice project, and detail values-driven practices in place by these leading programmers in the field, such as due diligence on duty of care toward documentary protagonists, examination of the conditions under which films were produced, centring the avoidance of retraumatising audiences, and the multifaceted question of accountability and how all curating entities can enforce or at least attempt to structurally bring about greater accountability further upstream in the ecosystem by not accepting films whose conditions of origination are extractive, appropriative or ethically contestable. We will also explore the impact of new curatorial initiatives on the distribution and exhibition field at large and conduct a participatory worldbuilding experience, wherein attendees will be able to join session participants in designing the just, ethical and culturally abundant future of film curation.

Guests

Can Sungu
Jemma Desai
Tambay Obenson
Lucy Mukerjee

Moderation

Karim Ahmad

You can find an overview and schedule of all our talks here.