Copenhagen, various venues, 11-14 May 2023
The Social Life of Film will be the first international congress for nomadic screening collectives in Scandinavia and beyond, co-organised by PRISMS and the Copenhagen-based group Terrassen.
The congress will bring together 14 non-profit, nomadic screening organisations from around Europe to share their ideas and experiences of trying to build a more inclusive film culture.
While the discussions will be limited to the participants, there is also a series of public events around Copenhagen during the congress curated by some of the guest collectives – details below. All events are free entry.
(Image: Growing Up Absurd, Ben Balcom & Julie Niemi, 2023 – see Hærk programme below)
EVENT DETAILS
Thursday May 11 FARO 20:00 (program played every 30 min) at Bio 1711 (Flæsketorvet 38B, 3. sal)
Friday May 12 HÆRK 20:00 at Palads (Axeltorv 9)
Friday May 12 TERRASSEN 22:00 at Palads (Axeltorv 9)
Saturday May 13 MONOKINO 15:00 at Husets Biograf (Rådhusstræde 13)
Saturday May 13 OTHER CINEMA and BEFOREFORGETTING 18:00 at Osramhuset (Valhalsgade 4)
Saturday May 13 LIBERATED FILM CLUB 21:30 at Mayhem (Ragnhildgade 1) – doors open at 21:00
Thursday May 11 FARO presents Boredom Loop
20:00 (program played every 30 min) at Bio 1711 (Flæsketorvet 38B, 3. sal)
For the opening of The Social Life of Film, the Lisbon-based collective farO will present BOREDOM LOOP a special program in a sequence arranged by chance at Bio 1711, with drinks available in the cantina outside the cinema. farO (formerly known as Oporto) is a public programme of artistic diffusion and investigation. It draws attention to artworks, artists and stories we find singular, connecting experimental moving images, plastic arts, sound and poetry, in an all encompassing reading of the artistic production.
The programme includes works by Copper Giloth & Mimi Shevitz, Ernest Gusella, Miguel Soares, Amy Lockhart, Catherine Biocca, Animal Charm and Bill Etra.
Friday May 12 HÆRK presents A Place is a Story Happening Many Times
20:00 at Palads (Axeltorv 9)
HÆRK, a collective of young art practitioners situated in Norway, will start off the Friday night double header at Palads (followed by Terrassen). When we talk about place, we mean not only landforms, but “the flavour of a society, the beliefs and activities of people who make up a given place”. Much has been written in the last thirty years or so about “the sense of place”, it has maybe become a bit of cliché. At the same time, senses of place or sensitivity to place, are invaluable social and cultural tools, providing much-needed connections. Places offer opaque apertures onto an unknown past, present or future that is not, but might be, our own. Narratives articulate relationships between teller and told, here and there, past and present.
The programme includes works by Oleksiy Radynski, Ben Balcom & Julie Niemi and Lawrence Abu Hamdan.
There will be an intermission drink before the Terrassen event served on the terrace of Palads in between the screenings.
Friday May 12 TERRASSEN
22:00 at Palads (Axeltorv 9)
Terrassen will present two films at Palads. The first will be the premiere of a film that grew out of a workshop around collectivity and moving images at Medieskolen at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2021. In collaboration with a group of students the material was shot over a long weekend in and around the cinema Palads. The second is La Verifica Incerta, a film derived and stolen from 150,000 meters of American commercial film in cinemascope, distributed in Italy, dating from the years 1950-60 and destined for destruction after their commercial run.
The programme includes works by Terrassen & Mediaskolen and Gianfranco Baruchello & Alberto Grifi.
Saturday May 13 MONOKINO presents Looking at the Sea
15:00 at Husets Biograf (Rådhusstræde 13)
The sea is Monokino’s favourite projection surface for images, stories and histories. In this programme we go from the sea to the ocean, from Belgian film pioneers Henri Storck and Marcel Broodthaers, to contemporary filmmakers Katrien Vermeire and Antoinette Zwirchmayer. Vivian Ostrovsky brings along Carmen Miranda to help us celebrate the joy of looking at the sea.
Due to limited seating a reservation is needed for this event. Please reserve a ticket by writing your name to info@terrassen.bio. Due to high demand, please make sure to return reserved tickets if you can’t make it. We encourage people to come even if it has sold out. Unused seats will be filled on a first come first serve basis before the screening begins.
Saturday May 13 OTHER CINEMAS & BEFOREFORGETTING present In-between forgetting and remembering: Afghanistan through film
18:00 at Osramhuset (Valhalsgade 4)
The past is told, portrayed, preserved and destroyed by those in power. The material history of Afghanistan and its documentation is one that is being built and rebuilt on shaky foundations against fragmented histories. In this film programme led by curator Parwana Haydar, we will delve into the history of the Afghan Film Archives and discuss how they inform a deeper understanding of Afghanistan. We will screen two films followed by a panel discussion with Dr Chihab El Khachab author of the Ajam Media Collective Article When did Afghan Cinema Begin and Ariel Nasr, director of The Forbidden Reel.
The Forbidden Reel by Ariel Nasr is the first part of a three part film about the birth of the state-funded Afghan Film production and archive institute. For five years Ariel Nasr interviewed key figures from Afghan Film, restored and digitised parts of the Archives and directed The Forbidden Reel, shining a light on a part of film history which was almost eradicated. We will watch the first part of his film which gives us an incredible insight into the visual history of Afghanistan.
Khan-e-Tarikh (House of History), made in the winter of 1996 in Afghanistan, is probably the only documentary film produced by Afghan Film during that time. Khoja Jaan (Kh. Ahmad Shah Sediqi) who did the negative cutting and timing, says that he had to cut the original negatives as there were no resources or money for duplicate negatives. “A very bad thing to do, but such were those times. And yet, Afghan Films never shut down. We came to work whenever we could.”
The screening is followed by a free communal dinner.
Saturday May 13 LIBERATED FILM CLUB presents STILL LIVING: FRANS ZWARTJES
21:30 at Mayhem (Ragnhildgade 1) – doors open at 21:00
As the final event of the congress purge.xxx will do a screening and record release at Mayhem. Frans Zwartjes was described by Susan Sontag as “the most important experimental filmmaker of his generation.” In recent years through releases on purge.xxx and Trunk Records, Zwartjes has become known for his music as much as for his films.
This event is held to mark the release of the new double LP on purge.xxx, introduced by the anti-label’s artistic director (and Zwartjes collaborator), Stanley Schtinter, who has been defined by The Wire magazine for his “disregard for the music industry, culture of self-promotion and prevailing cultural norms”. Recent releases on purge.xxx include Nkisi, New Noveta, Jocelyn Pook and Trevor Mathison.
Schtinter’s film portrait of Zwartjes will screen alongside one of the Dutch artist’s rarely seen longer works, and the vinyl LP will be played in full, with copies available on the night ahead of its official release.
The screening is followed by DJ-sets from Adagio for Things & Fabienne Erato
Participating organisations in The Social Life of Film include: Beforeforgetting (Copenhagen), Camelia Committee (Oslo/Beirut), Cinema Parenthése (Brussels), Labor Berlin, OtherCinemas (London), FarO (Lisbon), Haerk (Oslo) Liberated Film Club (UK), Masahat (Oslo), Monokino (Ostend), Polar Film Lab (Tromsø), PRISMS (Oslo), Sinema Transtopia (Berlin), Terrassen (Copenhagen).
The Social Life of Film is made possible by generous support from Statens Kunstfond, Flanders in the Nordics, Nordic Culture Point, Nørrebro Lokaludvalg, 48timer Festival, Nordisk Kulturfond Opstart and the Office for Contemporary Art Norway.
