As part of XOLA! in Malmö this September, there’ll be a technical workshop headed by RåFILM.

RåFILM is a collective of filmmakers connecting film and activism. Their aim is to facilitate collaborative filmmaking that deals with political issues and questions norms.
They work with documentaries, animation and fiction films, organize campaigns, and arrange filmmaking workshops. Check their website for films, activities, and info on the fantastic bicycle cinema – an outdoor cinema in motion! More info here >

The technical workshop will be side-dished by a series of talks on citizen journalism, auto-ethnography, and media critique, from amazing people like journalists Abigail Sykes, Johanna Karlsson, and Frida Sandström, plus research collective Making A Living. First up, on September 3rd, is Abigail Sykes.

Abigail Sykes is a journalist who has worked in radio and newspapers since 2005. She was born i New Zealand but now lives in Malmö. She’s editor-in-chief of Landets Fria Tidning, an alternative media voice with a focus on subjects such as ecological, social and economic sustainability outside of the metropolitan areas. Landets Fria Tidning is one of a few newspapers in Sweden which regularly provides an outlet for citizen journalism. She has also educated hundreds of citizen journalists over the last few years, in collaboration with Glokala Folkhögskolan.

Then, on September 4th, there’s a talk with the group Making A Living. They are a collective of women who work with an auto-ethnographic process. While walking and talking, they document and map their movements through the city, from their homes to their places of work. Making A Living is influenced by methods from militant research and auto-ethnography, wherein the distance between the researcher and the subject gets erased. The term ‘to make a living’ is understood as not just going to work to earn a salary, but as an accumulation of everyday experiences, social interactions, spaces and subjectivities.

The workshop in Malmö (the technical part and the first talks) will take place in the ‘creative workshops’-space of Kontrapunkt. The address is Norra Grängesbergsgatan 26b. To find the entrance, go to the address, and locate the building across the street from Malmös King Falafel & Kebab. Round the corner of 26b, walk halfway towards the power station until you find the doors that are pictured here.

Entrance (round the corner from Norra Grängesbergsgatan 26 B)

Kontrapunkt is a house of culture and a social centre. As a bonus, the participants in our workshop will receive a membership in the creative workshops of Kontrapunkt which provides access to  the video editing area but also for example the carpentry, photolab, and screenprinting areas. The computer equipment and editing programs that we work on during the workshop will be left behind, so that participants can continue working on their own in a familiar environment after the workshop ends. Kontrapunkt also runs a Folkkök, which includes a mobile cooking unit – which will be present during the first outdoor screening of the workshop. But more on this later!

Info about Kontrapunkt here >

The filmmaker collective RåFILM, which is leading the technical workshop, also happens to be located in the same building, by the way.

We’re developing a workshop for politically motivated outdoor cinema producers. This fall there’ll be two workshops, one in Malmö and one in Gothenburg. In Gothenburg, the workshop is arranged for young activists and artists involved with the organization Pantrarna. In Malmö, the participants come from a variety of organizations for young people, gathered through Den Nya Konstutbildningen.

The workshops will provide some basic technical know-how and some hands-on practice with doing outdoor screenings. We’ve talked a lot about what happens after the workshops, once we leave. What we’re trying to do is make it as feasible as possible for the participants to continue without us there. This means that we’ll be leaving technical equipment behind, for the participants to continue using, but also that we’ll try to introduce them to existing local networks, for example.

The workshop has grown out of our work with a presentation called To Own The Means Of Image Production, and with our Manual – info on both can be found here on the blog.

As a socialist cinema, we’re happy to say that both workshops are funded by the state, through The Public Art Agency, or Statens Konstråd. Special thanks to Edi Muka, Isak Mozard, Martì Manen, and Joanna Zawieja at Statens Konstråd! Both workshops are also produced in collaboration with Konstfrämjandet, the art wing of the people’s movements in Sweden. Special thank you’s to Lisa Nyberg and Kim Einarsson from Konstfrämjandet!