Towards a manifesto on collective cinema

This workshop will introduce participants to different forms of filmmaking to reflect on processes of collective production. The point of departure will be a reading and discussion of important manifestos for filmmaking that were written during the second part of the 20th Century, especially in Latin America, with the emergence of the so-called Third Cinema – a form of film production that was set against neocolonialist visual practices, the capitalist system, and the Hollywood model of cinema as a continuation of a system of domination. We will engage with manifestos in the context of Third Cinema, as well as with other writings or fragments that evoke the importance of collectivity, horizontality and the production of an aesthetic centered cinema on the context of production and not on the production of entertainment.

The workshop departs from the idea that manifestos imply typically ruptures, breaks, and challenges to the steady flow of politics, aesthetics, and history. For a first step, the discussion will take us to imagine the possibilities, needs and conceptual scopes of a manifesto. In a second step we will see how to actively engage on a collective manifesto to which we can attach our ideas on the production process and engage through our collective resources.

Javier Toscano (born in Mexico City, lives and works in Berlin) is a documentary filmmaker and interdisciplinary researcher in the fields of migration studies, political philosophy and philosophy of technology. In his practice, he embraces notions of care as he collaborates with minorities, communities and groups with disabilities towards the production of alternative narratives of self-affirmation and existential exploration. (+ info at javiertoscano.net and collective-cinema.net).