How to be collective?

line-up

A Necessary Music ^film
Beatrice Gibson
Verenigd Koninkrijk, 2008, 20’

14:00
 
The takes long, languid and beautifully pictorial - in a narration shared between Robert Ashley (perhaps one of the most distinguished voices in contemporary music) and dwellers of Roosevelt Island (a small sliver of land situated between NYC burroughs Manhattan and Queens) - A Necessary Music is a musically conceived science fiction film, exploring the social imaginary of a utopian landscape through directed attention to the voices that inhabit it.
 
Tiger Award Winner for Short Film, Rotterdam Film Festival, 2009

 
Beauty and the Right to the Ugly ^film
Wendelien van Oldenborgh
België, 2014, 56’

14:30
 
Beauty and the Right to the Ugly is a cinematic experiment set in the multifunctional community center, Het Karregat, in Eindhoven. Het Karregat, designed by architect Frank Van Klingeren and completed in 1974, is situated in the center of a neighbourhood of new housing and sought to propitiate communal forms of habitation. The design was an open-plan space wherein different activities and functions –a library, a school, a café, a health centre, a supermarket and communal area– would be connected under the same superstructure. 
 
Wendelien Van Oldenborgh examines the devenir –and partial failure– of this utopian architecture, while conceiving and implementing a filming methodology that translates architecture premises such as “open”, “user-led” and “participative” into cinematic devices.
 

 
Le cadeau ^film
Myriam Van Imschoot
België, 2018, 48’

15:30
 
Le cadeau is a tribute to the 'youyou' (in French) or the 'zagharit' (in Arabic), a shrill trill that is used by women in North-Africa, the Middle East, Subsaharan Africa, amongst other countries, to express joy and other intense emotions. Nowadays the cry can be heard more and more in Western contexts, where it diversifies the soundscapes of private and public spaces.
 
At the heart of this film are four portraits of women who highlight their personal relation to the youyou and their voice. Their stories culminate in a collective performance action of the Brussels YOUYOU group. From the rooftops of Brussels and with a loud voice they cast their net of sound over the city as if it were a spell.
 

 
Black Archive: Afterthought  ^talk+film
Maxime Jean-Baptiste & Sofia Dati

17:00
 
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Collectif Jeune Cinéma, Maxime Jean-Baptiste and Stéphane Gérard present the program of films Black Archive, a decolonial approach to experimental cinema, with panels and workshops at Beursschouwburg and Cinematek, Brussels, from the 20th till 23rd of September. 
 
With Black Archive, they propose to reconsider the representation of black bodies through moving images, to deconstruct the racial stereotypes conveyed by dominant cinema and to confront the invisibilization of black people in the production and distribution of experimental film. To probe this absence, the program seeks to reframe these marginalized stories and experiences through the gaze of Afrodescendent filmmakers. 
 
At the occasion of the partnership between Argos and MOOOV, Maxime Jean-Baptiste, filmmaker, and Sofia Dati, curator at Beursschouwburg, will present an afterthought of their program, by sharing their collective process as well as several films from the program.

 
Elle ^{shortfilm + talk}
Gladys Bukolo
België, 2021, 5’
17:30

Using found footage and excerpts from Ousmane Sembène's La noire de... (1966), Gladys Bukolo builds up a poetic picture of her relation to her own body, to different and alien bodies caught between intimate, public and imagined spaces. 
 
Ploughing the Stars ^{shortfilm+ talk}
Wally Fall
Guadeloupe, 2020, 14’
18:00
 
In Plowing the Stars, a woman reflects on her life while she is on her way to meet her dad. Along the way, the country looks empty to her and, slowly, memories of past lives are coming back to her. Is it real? Or is it only a dream?
  
ΜΑΛΘΑ: The Thrice Burnt Archives of Unreliable Prophecies ^{shortfilm + talk}
Maria Christoforidou
Griekenland, 2021, 6’10”
18:00
 
The ΜΑΛΘΑ Archive is a video essay that tampers with and speculates on cultural memory. Departing from mainstream Greek imagery and the subsequent hegemonic subjugation of those who do not fit a ‘Greek imaginary’, the ΜΑΛΘΑ Archive works to affirm the presence of people with African descent in Greece.
 
 

 
How to be collective? ^talk
Faire-part, Subversive Film, Maxime Jean-Baptiste en Sofia Dati

20:00
 
ARGOS gaat in gesprek met de leden van de twee collectieven Faire-part en Subversive Film en met filmmaker Maxime Jean-Baptiste en curator Sofia Dati over de do’s and don’ts van collectieven.