Practical information

           A presentation of Kurdish films by the Rojava Kurdistan Film Commune (Northern Syria)

OVNI has collaborated with the Rojava Film Commune in a project aimed at researching, screening, and promoting their work in Spain, Italy, and France. A process of investigation through videos, texts, and meetings, in order to listen to their voices and understand their struggle together. We have created a website that you can visit link.

Komîna fîlm a Rojava (Rojava Film Commune) is a collective of filmmakers founded in 2015, based in the autonomous Rojava region in the Federation of Northern and Eastern Syria. The Commune is actively working in the region to rebuild and reorganise filmmaking and film education infrastructures.

The Rojava Film Commune was established to promote local film culture by organising film screenings, facilitating discussions on the role of film within society, producing new films, and setting up a Film Academy. Following the 1960 fire in Rojava’s only cinema in the city of Amude—which saw the death of 298 children trapped inside—the Commune aims to reclaim film as a central space for reimagining society, by democratising and revolutionising the imagination itself.

The Commune has educated a new generation of Rojava filmmakers, organized screenings in cities and villages, and produced new films. It seeks to represent the values and ideals of the Rojava Revolution, but also to mediate and depict the daily struggles in the Syrian civil war and Rojava’s collective attempt to build a new society.

The Rojava Film Academy provides education for aspiring filmmakers in Northern Syria. Founded in 2015, it offers one-year programmes, with courses on international film history, Kurdish film history, film theory, photography, cinematography, script writing, editing, and sound design, taught by local and international film professionals.

The Academy is self-organized and non-hierarchical, encouraging students to participate in every aspect of its organization. Exchange networks have also been set up with other academic, media, and news platforms, and with civil society organizations, in order to engage in broad discussions and create screening possibilities. Considering the influx of foreign filmmakers and journalists to Rojava, it is important for the Commune to reclaim the representation and imagination of the revolution.

After decades of oppression of Kurdish language and culture, the Rojava Film Academy aims to revitalize local film culture, reclaiming the power to narrate and imagine one’s dreams and realities. After the Syrian Civil War started, the predominantly Kurdish northern region declared the Autonomy Administration, creating structures based on grassroots democracy, women’s liberation, and cultural diversity.

The Academy bases its methodology on ‘revolutionary realism’, i.e. a realism that does not merely reveal the current reality in a new way, but also restructures the reality of the possible . As well as finding forms to express things as-they-are, it creates the opportunity to imagine the not-yet-present, the ‘eternal becoming’ that is the revolution itself.

https://rewend.desorg.org/

https://rewend.desorg.org/

This documentary challenges the social bases of domestic violence by showing the strategies used by women who work in the legal system, in the gaps left where there are no longer traditions, beliefs or state or religious laws. It is an epic everyday struggle to defend women, but also to convince poor women of their rights. Sisters in Law is a fascinating look at the work of a courthouse in a small town in Cameroon, Central Africa. The tough-minded state prosecutor, Vera Ngassa and judge, Beatrice Ntuba, are helping women and children to find the courage to fight difficult cases of domestic violence and child abuse despite pressures from family and their community to remain silent. Through their emotional stories and courage, the extraordinary work of women in the judicial system shines through. With fierce compassion, the female prosecutor and judge dispense wisdom and justice in fair measure; handing down stiff sentences to those convicted. Sisters in Law presents another reality of African Women’s agency and their resilient spirit, courage, hope and fight for justice and gender equality.

A sea of green stretches as far as the eye can see on both sides of the dirt road leading to the Paraguayan communities of Lima, Capiibary and Guayaibí. The huge fields are planted with genetically modified soy, Paraguay's leading export product. As it takes over more and more land, the crop is leaving sick people, displaced communities and trampled rights in its wake, according to the documentary Soberanía violada, which means “violation of sovereignty”.

Historically, Cauca's indigenous movement has gone through times of war in which it was forced to use the right to civil violent resistance in response to attacks by armed groups. Now, it is a peaceful movement focused on respect for life and everything that makes it possible.

This film explores the lives of a refugee community, the Saharawis, whose land was stolen and they were condemned to live in a forgotten corner of the Sahara desert. The human face of this long struggle for independence is shown through a child called Hussein and his family.

Soraida is a Palestinian woman who lives in Ramallah, in the occupied territories. This video captures her personal struggle to retain her humanity in the midst of oppression. In her neighbourhood, the women do not all wear veils, the men do not rattle off empty political slogans, and the young people do not have bombs strapped to their belts. Life goes on despite the curfews and checkpoints that confine the people in a barless cage. Soraida invites us into her world, and that of her family and neighbours. Through their simple, everyday actions, we discover the worst thing about living under a state of siege: the loss of control over one's own life. In this vibrant plea against the occupation, Soraida shares her reflections on life in Palestine and her refusal to give in to the hate and violence.

Between 1970 and 1972 the Angry Brigade used guns and bombs in a series of symbolic attacks against property. A series of communiques accompanied the actions, explaining the choice of targets and the Angry Brigade philosophy: autonomous organization and attacks on property alongside other forms of militant working class action. Targets included the embassies of repressive regimes, police stations and army barracks, boutiques and factories, government departments and the homes of Cabinet ministers, the Attorney General and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Liana Badr's documentary locates itself at the checkpoints and Wall crossings within the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Here, the control of walls, gates, and roads is always political, and seemingly simple structures serve not as means of passage but more often as obstacles to the crops, families, schools, and livelihoods of those who must endure their presence.