Mov(i)e Activism Berlin 2019 Flyer.
Mov(I)e Activism is an annual documentary film festival which this year took place from the 2nd to the 4th of May, 2019. The festival attempts to use documentary films to bring awareness about the work of underrepresented groups in specific communities and "to create an opportunity to explore some of the most current social, political, economic and environmental issues, spark dialogue and inspire change".
Throughout the two days of the festival, they showed 9 documentaries on a wide range of issues, from the ethical considerations of unpaid internships (Call Me Intern, by Nathalie Berger) to the environmental destruction by the hand of hydroelectric dams in the Balkan regions (Blue Heart, by Britton Caillouete).
In addition to the documentary screening, the Mov(I)e Activism festival also held discussion sessions with activists, filmmakers, and had a photo exhibition called German Angst, by Dijana Zadro, a Berlín-based Bosnian artist.
Photo by Dijana Zadro, German Angst
HISTORY
The Movie Activism Festival started in 2016 in Kragujevac, Serbia. A group of University students noticed that although young people comprised an 18% of the total number of citizens of the city, little social participation was occurring. Although participation has been progressively growing, new challenges are constantly coming up. To help youth involvement in civic action, they decided to promote Activism through cinematography with the hopes to create bridges amongst youth, NGOs, and social causes.
Under that premise the first edition was born. The festival intends to address problems that concern young activists and society in general, present these to citizens, local activists, authorities and help overcome these problems by exchanging experience at an international level. Moreover, they also intend to create a space for intercultural exchange and cooperation amongst peoples from different parts of the world.
Soon after their fist edition, the project realized its potential and activists from different parts of Europe showed interest in hosting their own festival and in between 2016 and 2017 the festival visited five different locations including: Berlin (Germany), Coimbra (Portugal), Kragujevac (Serbia), Rijeka (Croatia), and Valencia (Spain), screening more than 30 documentaries. In 2018 included Banja Luka (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Rijeka (Croatia), Bologna (Italy), Berlin (Germany), and Riga (Latvia).
What's interesting about Mov(i)e Activism?
There are many aspects of the festival worth mentioning in this section. And I would like to start by narrating a small anecdote, how I got there. The event took place at the Bootshaus auf dem Spreefeld, a small boathouse by the spree river, the main river of the city that splits Berlin in half, and where the Berlin Wall once stood. Right next to that boathouse, there is an alternative intentional community called Teepeeland, which as the name describes, is the land of Teepees. Teepeeland, has been existing for many years and it was started by a group of people from different parts of the world who rejected traditional living. The community is very open, and back in 2015, when I first visited Germany I ended up living there for a few months. In 2015, the Bootshaus was a pop-up dance club, and I remember having gone to parties there tripping on how multipurpose a space like that could be.
Four years later, 2019, I find myself showing Teepeeland to one of my best-friends from Semester at Sea, when we pass by the Bootshaus that has a sign that says: Mov(i)e Activism. Naturally, I am driven by the title of the event, but we continue our little tour, on our way out of Teepeeland, and with the intention of leaving we walk once again by the Bootshaus. This time, a young man is arranging candles outside the venue. Us, hesitant to start contact or come in, make a few comments about how interesting it sounded to us. To that the young-man with a very warm smile invites us, and very quickly convinces us to come in.
In doing activism, event or community organizing, I think it's very easy to become closed and institutional about invitation management. Some events require to register; some others to acquire tickets; some others to RSVP (either physically or via e-mail); however, I find that can be limiting for certain groups of people, and sometimes are those groups of people the ones that are most important to target. In other words, one of the things I'd highlight from the organization approach to Mov(i)e Activism is their inclusivity and openness, which brings in the possibility of diversity to the audience of the festival.
The structure of the screenings, include their screening themselves, and a talk/discussion forum afterwards. After that, the audience has an opportunity to mingle around, meet one another, chat with the organizers, chat with the presenters, filmmakers, etc. As John Dewey (one of the most important exponents on the area of experiential education) said: "We don't learn from the experience, we learnt from reflecting on experience". And this opportunities to talk and intellectually digest the themes of the movies, creates a very interesting opportunity for growth, connection, and action.
These two aspects, inclusivity & reflection, are two overt and evident aspects of the Mov(i)e Activism Festival I find particularly interesting. However, I had an opportunity to chat with some of the organizers. I discovered many other interesting aspects of the organization of the festival such as: donation-only funding, volunteer-only workforce, horizontal non-hierarchical organizational structure, consensus based decision making, and many others. Because I would like to go in depth into what these organizational aspects mean to their objectives as a group, I will discuss them in detail in a separate post, but know that they make an active effort to align their goals with their work model.
Mov(i)e Activism as a Peace Education Program.
Citizens involves in politics can play a very important role in bringing social change, even if it just by bringing up discourses on change to a community. Citizens have many avenues they can use to create change in a community. For instance they can practice democracy by voting (although in some "democratic" nations of the world that may not necessarily be the case due to corruption), they can also create spaces to gather other citizens and practice civil disobedience (protests, demonstrations, etc), they can also stirrup the pot by starting their own grass root movements (urban-farming, community shelters, etc), and those are just the examples that come to my mind right now. Peace Education, is another way by which people can bring about changes in their community, specifically with regards to forms of violence (namely direct, structural, cultural) that may be exercised towards a group (or several) of people, or the environment. (find more information about peace education on the following link). Sometimes Peace Education takes the form of education for peace, and sometimes is more oriented towards education about Peace. Whether is the former or the latter, there is always a component of theory and action with regards to how can we address and resolve issues of violence in a community.
Up until now, I have generally conceptualized Peace Education as having a top-down impact structure. There is a group of people who comes with ideas/tools/resources/strategies to enlighten a different group on how to bring peace to their community. However Mov(i)e Activism festival brings about a different opportunity for Peace Education. This is a group of people interested in bringing up in the community where they live, issues affecting them and others around them, and through cinematography learning about what is being done/can be done, in order to resolve this issues. Through this they bring about strategies, tools, and a network of people who can spark what community members need to take action upon issues they care about. In this way, they develop what I consider to be the most important aspect of Peace Education: transformative optimism. The idea that we have the power to change things, and that things can be changed for the better.
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