When: 15 October 2021, 18:00 — 19:30
Venue: Online

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SCREENING + Discussion

Les Sauteurs (2016), directed by Abou Bakar Sidibé, Moritz Siebert and Estephan Wagner.

‘Fifth Cinema’: Theorising Refugee-Led Filmmaking, with Raminder Kaur and Mariagiulia Grassilli.

Raminder Kaur and Mariagiulia Gassilli describe ‘Fifth Cinema’ as: ‘a mobile, unstable, instantaneous, fragmented, displaced and hybrid bricolage. A “smart cinema”, owing to the prevalence of digital technologies, it exists in dispersed pockets. It is the expression of new creative modes’.

In this discussion, we will unpack the idea of Fifth Cinema in relation to recent refugee filmmaking, asking what conceptual frames help us think through image making in the context of statelessness. We will explore the production contexts for these films and consider their role in resisting punitive bordering practices. 

Raminder Kaur is professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. She is the author of Kudankulam: The Story of an Indo-Russian Nuclear Power Plant (2020); Atomic Mumbai: Living with the Radiance of a Thousand Suns (2013); and Performative Politics and the Cultures of Hinduism (2003/5). She is also co-author of Adventure Comics and Youth Cultures in India (with Saif Eqbal, 2018), Diaspora and Hybridity (with Virinder Kalra and John Hutnyk, 2005); and co-editor of several other books. Aside from her academic writing, she is a scriptwriter, theatre producer and filmmaker.

Mariagiulia Grassilli is Research Associate at the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex and Director of Human Rights Nights in Italy. She works as a professional in Cinema and Human Rights, curating festivals and film production for raising awareness, creating empowerment and capacity building in Europe and Africa. Founding member of Human Rights Film Network – an international network of more than 40 human rights festival in the world. Her research focuses on migration, cinema, representations of diversity, cultural participation. Her publications include writings on Anthropology and Cinema (Journal of Visual Anthropology, vol. 20, 2007), Migrant Cinema (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 34, 2009) and Human Rights Film Festivals (Film Festival Yearbook 4, St Andrews University, 2012).