DOK Industry Podcast

Filmmaker and archivist Jihan El Tahri and creator, host of The What’s Up with Docs podcast and archival researcher Toni Bell talk about the manifesto “Liberate the Image” which was a call to action to make archives more accessible to content creators living in the Global South. During the conversation they will discuss:

Archival preservation of assets of those who are part of the Global Majority / Who gets to monetize archives and when does monetization make access to historical assets prohibitive / The role archivists play in the preservation of history and limitations due to limited staff, storage capacity, adequate facilities. / Access to non-commercial archives such as museums, community organizations, and individuals / Licensing struggles across the borders.

Moderated by Toni Bell, a conversation with Jihan El-Tahri.

Recorded on 8 October 2021 as part of DOK Industry Podcast Season 2

You can find out more about our collaborators here.

Reflecting on current calls to decolonise documentary film practices and to expand filmic canons, filmmaker Rosine Mbakam (The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman, Chez Jolie Coiffure) and festival founder and director Mahen Bonetti (New York African Film Festival) discuss the particulars of community-oriented production and exhibition practices with independent programmer Abby Sun (The DocYard). Their conversation touches on the ground-breaking work of Senegalese and Cameroonian directors such as Ousmane Sembène, Safi Faye, and Jean-Pierre Dikongué Pipa.

Together, they stress the need to extend past uplifting individual films and filmmakers, deconstructing the limitations of categories and the way documentary filmmaking can be taught, and exploring and preserving the works of filmmakers who have come before.

Language: English

With DOK Industry taking place completely online in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched the first season of our podcast series. Nine episodes were curated by and realised in partnership with POC2 Programmers of Colour Collective and What’s Up With Docs Podcast.

You can find out more about our collaborators here.

“If Africans do not tell their own stories, Africa will disappear.” (Ousmane Sembene). In this podcast episode, Chioma Onyenwe and Theresa Hill tell us about some of their favourite African documentaries made by African filmmakers.

Language: English

With DOK Industry taking place completely online in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched the first season of our podcast series. Nine episodes were curated by and realised in partnership with POC2 Programmers of Colour Collective and What’s Up With Docs Podcast.

As an educator Shakira Refos is always thinking about the population she serves, her students. In prioritising Black kids in her work, she’s always confronted by the challenge to find the same precious films for their age in which they can see their everyday struggles reflected back to them. Struggles they face by simply and sweetly living their lives as teenagers. Her wish is to see more Black joy in documentary film.

Let’s start by having an honest conversation about whiteness and the role arts administrators play on the self-perception of Black kids through the media culture we curate.

Language: English

With DOK Industry taking place completely online in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched the first season of our podcast series. Nine episodes were curated by and realised in partnership with POC2 Programmers of Colour Collective and What’s Up With Docs Podcast.

From the Oscars to the Césars, the needle of French cinema has been brought forward by a series of public debates on gender parity, inclusion and the representation of Black and other marginalised groups onscreen. Euzhan Palcy, veteran director of “Sugar Cane Alley”, “A Dry White Season”, “Siméon” and many others, was the first woman to receive a César award by the prestigious Académie des César in 1984. Alice Diop, filmmaker of “Danton’s Death”, “On Call and Nous”, more recently received a César for her documentary “Towards Tenderness” in 2017 (in ex æquo with filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré).

In the 33 years which span the awards handed down to both Black French women filmmakers, has their filmmaking gaze changed? Has the industry to which they belong made progress? Have the representations of Black people and other ethnic minorities on the silver screen of French cinemas evolved? How do they position themselves set against this backdrop? From fiction to documentary, from the French West Indies to Metropolitan France, DOK Leipzig invites these two major figures of French cinema to discuss their dual consciousness, filmmaking and their careers.

Language: French

With DOK Industry taking place completely online in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched the first season of our podcast series. Nine episodes were curated by and realised in partnership with POC2 Programmers of Colour Collective and What’s Up With Docs Podcast.

This conversation explores the many ways in which alliances, solidarities and joint platforms are being formed in Latin America between Indigenous-led film organizations and those led by Afro-descended peoples. In recent years, we have witnessed larger festivals in the region see an influx of works from both communities, as well as Indigenous-led festivals which have chosen to create platforms of visibility for Black Latin Americans. Other initiatives have focused on creating collaborations and co-productions between both communities, whilst others still have focused on empowering Black and Indigenous filmmaking talent together through talent residencies and training programmes.

In this podcast, the speakers who range from researchers and scholars, to festival programmers, to cultural workers at grass roots film organizations will exchange their expertise, experiences and perspectives in order to shed light on these collaborations, paying close attention to the current context of paradigm upheaval as well as the historical premises and future of such Afro-Indigenous allyship in Turtle Island.

Language: English

With DOK Industry taking place completely online in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched the first season of our podcast series. Nine episodes were curated by and realised in partnership with POC2 Programmers of Colour Collective and What’s Up With Docs Podcast.