tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/film-festival-30871/articlesFilm festival – The Conversation2024-03-12T12:36:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255152024-03-12T12:36:07Z2024-03-12T12:36:07ZArtdocfest is a crucial outpost of free expression on Russia’s doorstep<p>On the day of the funeral of <a href="https://theconversation.com/alexei-navalny-reported-death-of-putins-most-prominent-opponent-spells-the-end-of-politics-in-russia-223766">Alexei Navalny</a>, Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent, the biggest festival of documentary film in the former Soviet countries opened in Latvia with a minute’s silence. Artdocfest Riga’s programme spoke out resoundingly against the brutal dictatorships of Russia and Belarus, and provided a valuable space for Ukrainian filmmakers and others fomenting freedom and democracy in the region.</p>
<p>Having permanently relocated from Moscow to Riga in March 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the festival does not permit “<a href="https://artdocfest.com/en/news/mansky-speech-2024/">any film produced in Russian studios</a> in the competition programs”. But it did showcase films by foreign directors showing the Russian legal system’s crushing of dissent: Russia vs Lawyers (Masha Novikova, Germany), The Dmitriev Affair (Jessica Gorter, Netherlands) and The Last Relic (Marianna Kaat, Estonia).</p>
<p>Silent Sun of Russia (Sybilla Tuxen, Denmark) charts the inner turmoil of three young women displaced by the war as they join the <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/10/25/15-of-russians-who-fled-war-mobilization-have-returned-survey-a82885">more than 800,000 people</a> who have left Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This number includes filmmakers, such as Vitaly Akimov, now based in France, whose film The Last Summer celebrates a Russian youth scene of alternative art and anti-establishment attitudes.</p>
<p>When The Motherland Aborts You, also titled Country Abortion (Zoya Vodyanova, a pseudonym, Czechia/US) follows a lesbian couple. One of the women, Zakhara, has moved to India and the other, Lina, starts the film in St Petersburg. Zakhara is desperate to help Ukraine, even as a volunteer, but Lina dissuades her. The couple are distressed by the pro-war views of their family and wider Russian society. </p>
<p>This was also a theme in three anonymous Russian-made films: Point of the World, Musicians and Uno. Each depicts the reactions of youthful protagonists to the situation, from biting their lip and hypocrisy, to private tears and failed attempts to leave.</p>
<p>One of three films in the main competition, Pussy Boys (Darya Andreyanava and Mikalai Kuprych) follows gay Belarusians. They not only address the camera in private, but also discuss their sexuality publicly in random conversations on buses – a political act in a country where homosexuality is <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-proposes-law-against-nontraditional-family-lgbt/32826074.html">soon to be criminalised</a>, as it is in Russia.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Motherland at Artdocfest.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Motherland (Alexander Mihalkovich, Sweden, and Hanna Badziaka, Norway/Ukraine) focuses on a mother investigating her son’s suicide as a result of the bullying of recruits typical in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/06/russian-armys-hazing-culture-drove-son-ramil-shamsutdinov-to-kill-soldiers-says-father">Soviet</a> and now <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-army-suicides-deaths-/28802305.html">Belarusian army</a>. The film is a broader reflection on society’s violence, as recruits realise they will be told to shoot protesters. This is set against the protests against the <a href="https://theconversation.com/belarus-election-contested-result-sparks-massive-unrest-as-europes-last-dictator-claims-victory-144139">falsified 2020 Belarusian elections</a>, when Alexandr Lukashenko brutally suppressed those demanding he resign in favour of the winning candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. </p>
<p>Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign and the protests are the subject of Accidental President (Mike Lerner and Martin Herring, UK). The film received an emotional reception, with the audience shouting “<em>Zhyve Belarus</em>” (Long live Belarus), the slogan of the protests. </p>
<p>Franak Viačorka, Tsikhanouskaya’s chief political advisor spoke at the festival, necessitating heightened security and illustrating Artdocfest’s importance. Latvia shares a border with Belarus and Russia: these dictatorships are a threat to their neighbours as well their own citizens.</p>
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<h2>‘Ukraine Above All’</h2>
<p>The festival screened five films about Ukraine in its main competition, as well as a special programme entitled <a href="https://artdocfest.com/en/program/ukraina-ponad-use--artdokfest-2024/">Ukraine Above All</a>. Artdocfest has promoted films by and about Ukraine ever since the 2014 illegal annexation of Ukraine, even when it was based in Russia. This was a major reason it had to relocate.</p>
<p>However, a global appetite for Ukrainian documentary films about the war means some of the biggest now head to Sundance or Berlin festivals, achieving wider distribution. Such was the case with the 2024 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlab8EvzxRw">Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol</a>. Instead, Artdocfest screened films evoking the war indirectly, but no less poignantly.</p>
<p>The Mist (Dmytro Shovkoplias) is an immersive film conveying the confusion and disorientation of suddenly finding yourself caught in a war. Position (Yurii Pupirin) showed the daily tedium of Ukrainian soldiers waiting in trenches, fighting the weather and mud more than the enemy. A Picture to Remember (Olga Chernykh) and A Bit of a Stranger (Svitlana Lishchynska) both reflect on identity and family history, a process triggered by the displacement forced on Ukrainians by Russia’s aggression. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Artdocfest Riga 2024 showreel.</span></figcaption>
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<p>This same dislocation of up to <a href="https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/ukraine/">10 million people</a> was depicted by winner of the main prize, In the Rearview. Polish director Maciek Hamela filmed the Ukrainian passengers he picked up and ferried to the border as they processed the first days of the war and began their lives as refugees. The documentary evolved from his work as a volunteer driver, as he wanted to document the stories he witnessed. It is a fusion of ethics and aesthetics exemplifying the greatest possibilities of the medium.</p>
<p>British historian and Russia commentator, <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-the-west-can-truly-avenge-navalnys-death/">Mark Galeotti, suggested</a> that one effective way the west could avenge Navalny’s death is by investing in Russian language media. This would offer a different perspective on domestic and world affairs for growing numbers of Russians, realising that their own state is lying to them. </p>
<p>Artdocfest is an important part of that approach, offering an outpost of free expression on Russia’s doorstep. Just as it screened and acclaimed Navalny’s films in life, so the festival continues his legacy, speaking out and amplifying others who do the same.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Hicks is a member of the UK Labour Party</span></em></p>Artdocfest 2024 was a showcase for films that show the reality of the war in Ukraine, and the spread of Russian politics to neighbouring countries.Jeremy Hicks, Professor of Russian Culture and Film, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1226542019-08-30T09:09:37Z2019-08-30T09:09:37ZVenice International Film Festival is paying lip service to its pledge on gender transparency<p>Things are really bad for women filmmakers at the 76th Venice International Film Festival with its poor record on female representation. Of the 21 films in competition, only two are directed by women. The appointment of the female Argentinian director, <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/lucrecia-martel-venice-film-festival-jury-president-argentina-director-1203251250/">Lucrecia Martel</a>, as jury president is a step in the right direction but she cannot solve the issue alone – especially when some of her views on female-only quotas <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/28/jury-members-clash-over-roman-polanski-as-venice-film-festival-opens">appear to be ignored by the men in charge</a>.</p>
<p>In part, the entertainment media are to blame. It was widely reported that Venice had <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/spotlight/venice-film-festival-signs-gender-parity-pledge-1202922995/">signed up to the gender parity pledge</a>, known as <a href="https://site.5050by2020.com/">5050 by 2020</a> – but only a few reported that this was a modified version, and no report so far has scrutinised how and if the pledges are being met.</p>
<p>Also, there has been a huge outcry about the under-representation of women directors. But then it stops and things move on to the usual reporting on the great films in competition – by men. </p>
<h2>A modified pledge</h2>
<p>Overall, Venice’s record on women is dismal. The Golden Lion award has been given <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls020806626/">70 times so far</a> – but while 62 male directors have won it (some twice), only four women have. Among the 11 Italians who have won the Golden Lion, not one was female.</p>
<p>Last year, the festival only included <a href="https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/one-female-director-in-competition-at-venice-film-festival-37154478.html">one female-made film in competition</a> (Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale). Controversy ensued, so the festival reluctantly followed in the footsteps of Cannes and signed up to the gender parity pledge – but not before amending it. </p>
<p>The original pledge called for full <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/news/venice-film-festival-sign-gender-parity-protocol-pledge-1202921620/">statistics-based transparency</a> on the submissions, for dissection of the gender bias in programming, and for instituting strategies that would lead to the dismantling of male-dominated power structures. But Venice <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/venice-film-festival-chiefs-signs-gender-parity-pledge-call-it-a-step-forward/5132174.article?referrer=RSS">amended all three pledges</a> and only committed to general talk of “transparency” related to film selection, programmers and management.</p>
<p>Speaking at the time, <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/venice-film-festival-chiefs-signs-gender-parity-pledge-call-it-a-step-forward/5132174.article?referrer=RSS">festival president Paolo Baratta</a> said there were “fundamental differences to be taken into account” and as such the Venice version of the pledge uses wording that suggests the festival needs to continue its practices, implying that it is already making efforts to reach gender parity and that fundamentally the problem is not with the event itself. “We are ahead, what we have been doing up to now is a starting point,” he commented.</p>
<p>Looking at the state of things a year later, it does not appear that even the amended pledges have really been kept. Unchanged from last year, the festival is still governed exclusively by men. Assisted by three male board members, the president and general director have been in position since 2008 and the <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/features/alberto-barbera-talks-venice-logistics-vr-and-his-future-as-artistic-director/5142321.article">artistic director, Alberto Barbera,</a> since 2012.</p>
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<p>According to Barbera, this is not a problem as <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/spotlight/venice-film-festival-signs-gender-parity-pledge-1202922995/">75% of its employees are women</a>. The festival seems to believe it has done a lot to improve gender balance. </p>
<p>As to the pledge for transparency on selection committees, nothing is available on the festival website on this matter. Unlike other festivals that regularly publish information on their selectors or have profiles available online (Rotterdam, Berlinale, Locarno), Venice only lists regulations and gives generic email contacts. No names. All it says <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2019/regulations">regarding selection</a> of the films submitted is that the festival director will be “assisted by his staff of experts, as well as by a group of correspondents and international consultants”.</p>
<p>The festival also pledged to hold a “gender seminar”. After an extensive search, one finds an event on “<a href="http://veniceproductionbridge.org/programme/seminar-gender-equality-and-inclusivity-and-film-industry">gender equality and inclusivity</a>” scheduled in September. But there is no information on who is on it – just sponsors. If the festival is serious about the seminar, it could have commissioned participants and reports in advance and publicised accordingly. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cannes-is-not-a-film-festival-its-a-club-for-insiders-96651">Cannes is not a film festival – it's a club for insiders</a>
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<p>The worst is, of course, the absence of female-made films. Two out of 21 titles in competition are by women. Compare that to seven out of 16 films in competition at <a href="https://www.berlinale.de/en/das_festival/festivalprofil/dates/index.html">Berlinale in 2019</a>. According to the pledge, there was meant to be “transparency about film selection”. Barbera apparently believes he has met it by disclosing that about <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/venice-director-alberto-barbera-responds-bullishly-to-provocative-competition-selection/5141532.article">24% of submitted films</a> were by female directors.</p>
<p>But he did not explain why and how this 24% has shrunk down to 12% in the final competition cut. Had the gender distribution of the submission been replicated, about five films by women would have ended up in competition. As things stand, three extra slots have gone to films directed by men. There is no particular transparency here.</p>
<p>Barbera, as the only identifiable selector, is seemingly opposed to any quotas for women. “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/28/jury-members-clash-over-roman-polanski-as-venice-film-festival-opens">The quality of individual films</a>” is the only possible criterion. Plus, women should not feel left out – some of the films in competition, he pointed out, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/26/venice-film-festival-gender-disparity-roman-polanski-nate-parker">reveal a new sensibility geared toward the feminine universe</a>” – even if they are directed by men. Why would women directors bother making films when men already address “the female condition”?</p>
<h2>An exclusive club…for men</h2>
<p>The Venice International Film Festival is nowhere near to accepting change. Change would mean destroying its own model, built on male privilege in the world of cinema and perfected over nearly 80 years of existence, operating like <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannes-is-not-a-film-festival-its-a-club-for-insiders-96651">an exclusive club</a>. Programming for its main competition is not done through a submission process, which it runs but does not rely on.</p>
<p>It is done by working with a cohort of “auteurs” who happen to be predominantly male. Of the <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2019/venezia-76-competition">19 male directors in competition</a>, all but four are known entities. At least 15 of them already have Venice pedigree and include Todd Phillips (Joker), Roman Polanski (An Officer and a Spy), Stephen Soderbergh (The Laundromat) and Yonfan (No. 7 Cherry Lane). Their films have featured at various strands of the festival and one (Roy Anderson) is a past winner of the Golden Lion.</p>
<p>Some of the others were nominated or received secondary other awards. Quite a few of these directors are famous worldwide, in Europe or in their respective countries. Their films spell “quality” by default – as the “quality” Barbera means is somehow a characteristic of their personality. Some – like Roman Polanski – possess the “quality” of keeping the world media’s attention on the festival, through notoriety. </p>
<p>Venice cannot possibly say it is transparent with such a selection process. Yes, it formally welcomes submissions by women and it does have women on staff. But the true programming for the festival is done by male selectors schmoozing with the established “auteurs” who the festival continuously works with. The only thing I wonder is why women directors bother submitting their films in the first place?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dina Iordanova’s research into Italian film festivals has been funded, in part, under a collaborative grant of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.</span></em></p>Pledges on gender parity are not worth the paper they are written on if selection processes remain secret.Dina Iordanova, Professor of Global CInema and Creative Cultures, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/979322018-06-08T05:23:50Z2018-06-08T05:23:50ZScience in film: from the meaning of time to the marvels of fungi<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222324/original/file-20180608-191951-psl5ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from the short film KCLOC.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://vimeo.com/216409853">Screenshot/Vimeo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the wonderful things about science is that it makes us think about what we value, or what is meaningful to us. It’s not just an objective, dispassionate inquiry into the material world, it’s also a large part of the story about what it means to be human.</p>
<p>That dimension is often missing in science education, but it is brought home beautifully within the collection of films that represent the winners of the 2018 <a href="http://scinema.australiascience.tv/">SCINEMA International Science Film Festival</a>, to be screened at various capital cities across Australia this month.</p>
<p>I managed to catch up with the festival in Brisbane this week, so I’ll mention some films that do this exceptionally well.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/let-me-entertain-you-thats-how-to-get-a-science-message-across-73839">Let me entertain you – that's how to get a science message across</a>
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<h2>The meaning of time</h2>
<p>In a playful way, Ninaad Kulkarni gorgeously animates a variety of interviews with people who are asked what time means to them.</p>
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<p>The film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7013822/">KCLOC</a> brings out an amazing thing about time — it’s a physical quantity, sure, but it just doesn’t seem as interesting to ask people what they think about mass or distance. It’s a fascinating point that suggests something profound about the human experience with and in time.</p>
<p>More dramatically, in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6955800/">Timelapse</a> writer and director <a href="http://aleixcastro.com/">Aleix Castro</a> explores the idea of an implanted chip that blocks mundane work tasks from our consciousness, promising to free us from the daily grind.</p>
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<p>Workers move around zombie-like until their work period (perhaps a month) ends. They then return to awareness and enjoy an extended leisure time. A month’s work seemingly passing in a second, and then a week off - and they are well paid for it!</p>
<p>It sounds like a win-win for employers and workers, but what about those periods during which we are working but our loved ones are not? And would we be happy losing large chunks of our lives from memory, even if those memories are boring? How would we learn perseverance, or recognise the exciting times if we have no contrasting experiences?</p>
<p>Maybe we’d want to extend those down times to household chores as well. How much of our lives would we end up living?</p>
<p>One of the most powerful impressions on me was made by <a href="https://radheyajegatheva.wixsite.com/radheya/irony">iRony</a>, <a href="https://radheyajegatheva.wixsite.com/radheya">Radheyda Jegatheva</a>’s adaptation of his poem Seven Billion.</p>
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<p>Hand-animated (which adds to the film’s intensity) and extraordinarily creative, iRony explores our relationship with the technology that is meant to connect us, but can rob us of joy and purpose. It’s another call to focus on how we spend our time.</p>
<p>If you have a child or friend who seems to have lost themself in social media, iRony would be a superbly targeted intervention.</p>
<h2>Why fungi matters</h2>
<p>Among the shorter films, the significantly longer <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/t/the-kingdom--how-fungi-made-our-world-2018/34093/">The Kingdom – How Fungi Made Our World</a> sounds, to the uninitiated like me, a good opportunity to order another wine.</p>
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<p>I just had no idea. Is there really fungus on everything we touch? Do we really breathe in fungi with every breath? (Yes, in case you were wondering.) And is the “g” hard or soft?</p>
<p>Fungi, it turns out, are the unifying evolutionary thread for all complex life on land. No fungi, no us. </p>
<p>Not only do they enable the proliferation of vascular plants over the world, creeping between and within their cells to provide essential nutrients, but they also connect them through giant networks of filaments (hyphae) to form — wait for it — the Wood Wide Web. </p>
<p>Unlike plants and cold-blooded animals, mammals seem to be generally fungus-free zones, as fungi do not like the higher core temperatures of our bodies. That exclusion gave mammals the advantage over other animals immediately after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/K-T-extinction">Cretaceous–Tertiary mass extinction</a> about 66 million years ago, resulting ultimately in the appearance of humans millions of years later.</p>
<p>But it’s not that we don’t get on with fungi at all. Not only did they gift us penicillin (and fungi might also be a solution to new resistant strains of bacteria - superbugs), but consider the yeast that gives us bread… and beer.</p>
<p>For the religiously inclined, it would not seem untoward to imagine that God at some stage said “Let there be fungi”, and all was good. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.grassrootsthedoc.com/">Grassroots</a>, written and produced by Tegan Nock and directed by Frank Oly, is an outstanding example of how citizens can put scientific findings to use. They don’t always have to wait for a technology to be processed, packaged and delivered to their door by others. </p>
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<p>Farmer Guy Webb became convinced of the ability of fungi (is there nothing they can’t do?) to sequester carbon in very significant amounts when added to crops, potentially reducing the impact of global warming. </p>
<p>Rather than wishing “they” would do something about it, one of the agriculturalists straightforwardly says, “we are the they”. It’s an exciting story of one person’s belief - growing into a group’s belief - that individual action based on existing science can have huge consequences. </p>
<h2>Production values</h2>
<p>There was enormous aesthetic value evident in the preview of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6209140/">Planet Earth II – Grasslands</a>, produced and directed by Chadden Hunter. A beautifully filmed and written piece that is breathtaking in how it uses the newest camera technology to make the audience feel they are moving along with the organisms rather than seeing them from afar.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Widow birds bounce for attention, from episode Planet Earth II: Grasslands.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Also visually stunning was the modelling shown in a Spanish production called <a href="https://www.bsc.es/news/bsc-news/release-virtual-humans-film">Virtual Humans</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Virtual Humans.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A supercomputer creates a virtual copy of a body that could allow medical treatments and physical therapies to be tailored to an individual’s exact requirements. All done in the safe confines of cyberspace. </p>
<p>It was also thought-provoking to realise how far away we are from being able to model a mind.</p>
<h2>The fun of it all</h2>
<p>The mindbogglingly mathematical Lily Serna takes us through a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4792087.htm">Catalyst episode</a>, produced and directed by David Symonds and Nicholas Searle, about using mathematics in decision-making.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trust-me-im-an-expert-the-explainer-episode-96286">Trust Me, I'm An Expert: The explainer episode</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Serna’s lack of pretension around her abilities and her joy in sharing the benefits of it is admirable, and she explains some very sophisticated mathematics with simplicity and clarity. </p>
<p>I wonder if we all have the confidence in mathematics to live by the decision-making algorithm she provides. It’s well worth a try, I reckon.</p>
<p>The festival is a great expression of why science matters, not just in the utility it provides but in the values and meaning it highlights. Facts and values don’t just make good entertainment, together they make good science.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What does time really mean? What if you could play with time? And what if we lived in a world without fungi? Some of the questions posed by filmmakers exploring the world of science.Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, Curriculum Director–UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/836952017-09-14T22:34:35Z2017-09-14T22:34:35ZTIFF 2017: Movie magic from math and science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186055/original/file-20170914-9021-44kw0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=823%2C581%2C3408%2C2675&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michael Shannon and Michael Stuhlbarg in the film "The Shape of Water." </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kerry Hayes /Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Math and science are hot topics with contemporary filmmakers. Think of the brilliant portrayal of African-American mathematicians and scientists in 1960s NASA in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4846340/"><em>Hidden Figures</em></a> or the tale of mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan, and his groundbreaking work with Godfrey Hardy at Cambridge University in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787524/"><em>The Man Who Knew Infinity</em></a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tiff.net/">Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)</a>, underway this month, is not immune to the charms of math and science, with past crowd-pleasers such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2980516/"><em>The Theory of Everything</em></a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/"><em>The Martian</em></a>. As a mathematics professor with a love for film and a Patron’s Circle membership that offers access to many of the festival’s premieres, I go on an annual search for STEM-centric movies.</p>
<p>Strange cultural collisions can occur between STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) storytelling and fans. In a cast chat after the TIFF 2015 premiere of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/"><em>The Imitation Game</em></a>, Benedict Cumberbatch spoke about the protagonist, Alan Turing, as a mathematician and gay icon. In a now famous incident, his thoughtful reflections on Turing were disrupted by an audience member asking to “<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/09/benedict-cumberbatch-yumminess-toronto">feast on his yumminess</a>.”</p>
<p>Although TIFF made <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/toronto-film-fest-shrink-movie-lineup-by-20-percent-978630">recent headlines about slimming down its slate of offerings</a>, there is no shortage of movies this year to pique my interest. Two movies caught my attention, each with science themes, and I give flash reviews of them below.</p>
<h2>The Current War</h2>
<p><em>1880. The world is still lit by fire</em>.</p>
<p>These words on the opening title card set the stage for <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140507/">The Current War</a></em>, whose world premiere was at TIFF 2017.</p>
<p>Benedict Cumberbatch plays Thomas Edison, who is in a race with George Westinghouse, played by Michael Shannon, to get electricity to market. Edison is a proponent of direct current, which is safer, more expensive and has less range. In contrast, Westinghouse developed alternating current, which is cheaper but potentially lethal. Alternating current won in the end, but Edison was not willing to easily let go of the fight.</p>
<p><em>The Current War</em> is eerily evocative of the modern race to innovation and commercialization within STEM. </p>
<p>Imagine a present-day Edison as <a href="https://qz.com/941498/elon-musk-has-a-curious-new-sales-pitch-for-the-tesla-model-3/">Elon Musk pitching a new electric car</a>. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon does a superb job telling a lesser known story about the commercialisation of electricity set against the backdrop of late nineteenth century Americana.</p>
<p>Cumberbatch is no stranger to playing brooding and complex intellectuals, from Alan Turing to Sherlock Holmes to superhero <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1211837/">Doctor Strange</a></em>. Shannon is a familiar face in science fiction outings, playing the loyal father in <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2649554/">Midnight Special</a></em> and the villain General Zod in <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770828/">Man of Steel</a></em>.</p>
<p>The movie is lovingly shot, with sumptuous period sets and costumes, and the performances, especially by Cumberbatch and Shannon, are terrific. The kinetic soundtrack forms a perfect accompaniment to the movie’s magical realist elements. The film felt disjointed at times, however, and I found it slow in places — it could use a deeper edit before wide release. </p>
<h2>The Shape of Water</h2>
<p>With a filmography containing <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/"><em>Pan’s Labryinth</em></a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/"><em>Pacific Rim</em></a>, and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167190/"><em>Hellboy</em></a>, it is safe to say that monsters are director Guillermo del Toro’s speciality. One of his persistent themes is finding the beauty and wonder in fantastical creatures, and his latest offering is no exception.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580390/">The Shape of Water</a></em> is a triumph. I’d wager the film will be a favourite for the Grolsch People’s Choice Award at TIFF and it should go deep into the Oscars. </p>
<p><em>The Shape of Water</em> focuses on the unlikely love story between an intelligent sea creature and a mute woman, played by Sally Hawkins, whose performance is nothing short of breathtaking. Michael Shannon and Octavia Spencer round out a powerhouse supporting cast. Much of the shooting for the movie took place in Toronto, the city del Toro calls home. The premiere was held at the Elgin Theatre in downtown Toronto, and the scenes shot in that historic space garnered enthusiastic applause from the local audience.</p>
<p>There are timely, allegorical messages here. While the scientists want to study the creature and the military wants to weaponize it, a custodian and her friends want to liberate it. </p>
<p>The film’s message is that rather than fear the unknown, we should embrace it. </p>
<p>Science and mathematics help illuminate the darkness as can film. <em>The Shape of Water</em> shines a light and is a perfect commentary for our time.</p>
<h2>Where no one has gone before</h2>
<p>There are so many untold stories of the pursuit of mathematics and science. Wouldn’t it be terrific to see Melissa McCarthy play Emmy Noether, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/science/emmy-noether-the-most-significant-mathematician-youve-never-heard-of.html">the most significant mathematician you’ve never heard of</a>? Or how about Jim Parsons playing <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html">Paul Erdős</a>, the genius and eccentric mathematician with a love for humanity?</p>
<p>TIFF is an unexpected showcase for films focusing on STEM and it’s wonderful to see more emerge each year at the festival. The box office success of <em>Hidden Figures</em> and <em>the Imitation Game</em> proves that a ticket-buying public relish watching movies featuring mathematicians and scientists.</p>
<p>Bring us more STEM, Hollywood. Audiences are watching and so are Oscar voters.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XFYWazblaUA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Official trailer for the Shape of Water (courtesy FOX Searchlight)</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Bonato does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This year’s Toronto International Film Festival is a further example of how science, technology, engineering and math illuminate movies – and, in the process, our minds.Anthony Bonato, Professor of Mathematics, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/783932017-06-13T06:10:30Z2017-06-13T06:10:30ZFilm festival reveals the passion, emotion and disappointment that can come with science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173536/original/file-20170613-10249-wyyqki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 14th SCINEMA screens across Australia June 7-19 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/582717676?src=pcIssaWXr4kQqio6xYsTQw-2-73&size=huge_jpg">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The International Science Film Festival <a href="http://scinema.australiascience.tv/">SCINEMA</a> is currently screening in Australia, and presents science features, shorts, documentaries, animated and experimental productions from filmmakers around the world. </p>
<p>I expected the program to present the theme that science is a grand and inspiring human endeavour. Such is the way of most things that celebrate science, be they splendidly directed documentaries such as those of David Attenborough or science fiction thrillers such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/">Interstellar</a>. Each seems to highlight the ability of science, or of scientific inquiry, to produce wonder, awe and excitement. </p>
<p>But SCINEMA is different. The most noticeable thing about the films is that, collectively and individually, they are less explicitly about science and more about us. These are very human stories about how we engage with the world — with the things in it, and with each other.</p>
<h2>Humans are the focus</h2>
<p>My strongest reaction to the films came from learning about the Mercury 13, the group of women who (through a private institution) underwent many of the same tests that the more famous, all male, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_157.html">Mercury 7 astronauts</a> took. The story was presented in the film The Purple Plain, written by Avril E. Russell. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173511/original/file-20170613-10208-1bq4e9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173511/original/file-20170613-10208-1bq4e9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173511/original/file-20170613-10208-1bq4e9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173511/original/file-20170613-10208-1bq4e9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173511/original/file-20170613-10208-1bq4e9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173511/original/file-20170613-10208-1bq4e9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173511/original/file-20170613-10208-1bq4e9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Purple Plain explores how different things might have been if it had been one small step for a woman, and one giant leap for mankind. Inspired by the true story of Mercury 13; the first women who tested for space flight.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://scinema.australiascience.tv/">from SCINEMA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It turns out that the 13 women all passed the psychological and physical tests taken by the males, with some women significantly outperforming them. </p>
<p>That the first astronauts could easily have been female is not hard to imagine, but that there was empirical evidence that they might have been better at it is both inspiring and saddening. </p>
<p>So while the science was clearly the context, the story was riveting because it was about the human drama of the story; and the contemplation of what might have been.</p>
<p>So too in the charming tale of two brothers who as young boys found an Einstein-Rosen bridge from their present to their future. Told in the film Einstein-Rosen (written, directed and produced by Olga Osorio), this is not a dark or serious story of scientific advancement, but a playful and warm story of the brothers’ relationship.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Two brothers explore time travel in the film Einsten-Rosen.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another film focuses on the plight of the pangolin in Pakistan: Pangolins in Peril – a Story of Rare Scales, written, produced and directed by Muhammad Ali Ijaz. The pangolin is not a particularly cuddly creature, being the only mammal to be covered in scales, but it has a quality that seems to inspire a passionate duty in the rangers charged with its preservation. </p>
<p>Images of the stalls of purveyors of pilfered and parboiled pangolin products are disturbing, and provide a strong case for the image of the pangolin being just as valuable as that of the panda in the cause of wildlife conservation. </p>
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<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/148530183" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Scaly Anteater or Pangolin is a little known secretive animal that is being hunted to extinction for its scales in Pakistan. The documentary sheds light on a creature that is shrouded in mystery and myth while following two wildlife wardens as they fight the odds to protect the Pangolin from hunters and poachers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The tragedy of the commodification of the pangolin is particularly acute as it is the consequence of humans struggling for existence themselves. The case of a pangolin hunter almost charmingly justifying his expertise on the precarious state of the pangolin because he was the cause of the problem is confronting. </p>
<p>Just as tragic is the case of the 2,500 year old aqueduct under-passing the Iranian city of Yazd, told in the film Owsia, (Darkened Water), and directed by Alireza Dehghan. Through a combination of corruption, apathy, ignorance and fading relevance the aqueduct is decaying and stagnating as a result of population increase and neglect. </p>
<p>This ancient engineering marvel is achingly significant to those men who grew up caring for it, and the contrast between their hopes and frustrations at its current state are in striking contrast to the attitudes of those with the power to control its future. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The aqueduct in the central Iranian city of Yazd has supplied water to the city for 2,500 years, now rots away due to bureaucracy and corruption.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Women scientists as the norm</h2>
<p>Five of the eight films featured in SCINEMA 2017 were made by, or were about women. Women were present in a way that simply and effectively naturalised science as a gender neutral project, which is not something science is known for <a href="https://theconversation.com/so-seriously-why-arent-there-more-women-in-science-2917">achieving</a>. </p>
<p>I found this interesting, and pleasantly so, having my 11-year-old, budding astronomer daughter watching the films with me (and I have an older daughter at uni studying science). </p>
<p>She was able to see not only the story of the Mercury 13, but also – through the film Fix and Release (directed by Scott Dobson) – she learned of Dr. Sue Carstairs who cares for turtles at the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre in Canada. This veterinarian heals turtles and returns them to the wild with a gentle passion and humour that made it seem a very fine goal for a life’s work. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Fix and Release explores the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre, a small turtle trauma centre in Peterborough Ontario Canada as it fights to even the odds for survival that freshwater turtles face in a modern world.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She saw two remarkable women – computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti and disease ecologist Lina Moses – explain their thinking during the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Not just their scientific thinking, but also their hopes and fears for success. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A computational geneticist and disease ecologist discuss the front line of the 2013-2015 Ebola outbreak in west Africa.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And she saw test tube twins make an informal, heartwarming (and very cheap) video explanation of their journey from zygote to womanhood as a way of expressing their own wonderment of it — and to finally explain to others how it happened, I suspect, without having to repeat the story over and over. The film is Test Tube Babies, written and directed by Alice Wade. </p>
<p>Some of the films were not necessarily as slick as they could have been — and some judicious editing might have helped me keep my focus during some of the longer ones – but by and large they ticked all the critical boxes I brought with me to the screening.</p>
<p>Go and see these films if you are into science, by all means, but also go if you are just into humans. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">You may never look at a paw-paw the same way.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p><em>Community screenings of selected SCINEMA films are free for anyone to take part in during <a href="https://www.scienceweek.net.au/">National Science Week 2017</a>: register <a href="http://scinema.australiascience.tv/community-screening-registration/">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Peter Ellerton received a ticket to attend SCINEMA courtesy of the <a href="https://riaus.org.au/">Royal Institution of Australia</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Robust scientific experiments are objective and separated from human influence. But the way we think about and connect with science can present beautiful stories.Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/646782016-09-06T20:49:08Z2016-09-06T20:49:08ZGhana’s ‘Chale Wote’ festival lifts spirits, frees souls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136563/original/image-20160905-15429-zq4q9t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Realpen Pencil is a young instant live drawing artist who lives and works in Accra, Ghana.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nduka Mntambo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To understand the potency of the multisensory intoxication that is the <a href="http://accradotaltradio.com/chale-wote-street-art-festival/">Chale Wote</a> Street Art Festival held in Accra, Ghana annually, I begin in the east of the continent and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uMwppw5AgU">invoke</a> Kenyan writer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/binyavanga-wainaina">Binyavanga Wainaina</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to live the life of a free imagination. I want to work with people around this continent to make new and exciting things, to make sci-fi things, stories, pictures. I want this generation of young parents to have their kids see Africans writing their own stories, painting their own stories. That simple act, I think, that is the most political act one can have. I want to see a continent where every kind of person’s imagination does not have to look for being allowed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chale Wote translates in the Ga language spoken in the Ga-<a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ghana/accra/sights/neighbourhoods-villages/jamestown">Jamestown</a> district of Accra to: “Man, let’s go!” It is a wonderful actualisation of a free imagination in action invoked by Wainaina. </p>
<p>It is an irreverent myriad of cutting edge performance art, film screenings, talks, music events, photography, fashion and installations. The Chale Wote project invites the artists and viewers to reconfigure the coordinates of how we understand our place in our world in ways that are both intriguing and liberating. </p>
<p>This year’s instalment of Chale Wote was framed under the idea of the creation of a “<a href="http://africandigitalart.com/2016/08/spirit-robot-chale-wote-street-art-festival/">Spirit Robot</a>”. The Spirit Robot offered participants an opportunity for an exorcism of the canonised ways of thinking from elsewhere. It is a thinking which continues to stunt African art practices that still seek permissions from white cubed spaces and the impotent halls of academia.</p>
<p>For a glorious week in Ga-Jamestown, the contours and cadences of every day’s joys, questions, fantasies, desires and sorrows are dramatised and, dare I say, theorised in ways that are daringly innovative and spectacularly visual.</p>
<h2>Meeting the black magician</h2>
<p>I encountered the Afro-American artist <a href="http://autumnjoiknight.com/">Autumn Knight</a> at the Untamed Empire, one of the beautiful venues where the Labs @ Chalo Wote programme was held. She describes herself as a black magician. This Afro-trickster’s bag of tricks includes an affecting performance video piece called Lagrimas Negras (Black Tears).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136431/original/image-20160902-20232-92qvmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136431/original/image-20160902-20232-92qvmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136431/original/image-20160902-20232-92qvmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136431/original/image-20160902-20232-92qvmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136431/original/image-20160902-20232-92qvmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136431/original/image-20160902-20232-92qvmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136431/original/image-20160902-20232-92qvmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The artist Autumn Knight, who participated in Ghana’s Chale Wote Street Art Festival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nduka Mntambo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the video, the artist offers her black tears at the seawall in Galveston, Texas. She wanted to see if an expression of grief by a black woman/body would elicit any form of empathy from the public. </p>
<p>For an hour Autumn wept but not a soul stopped to ask what was wrong, save for some children whose parents swiftly pulled them way. Autumn described it to me as a survivalist strategy from which she conjures up different realities/temporalities and imagines herself outside the world that tells us that we cannot make things. </p>
<p>At the heart of this film performance is the sad question “do black tears matter?”. Autumn is invested in constructing a narrative about our tears; in a world that is comfortable to hold a binary of black body as simultaneously inhuman and superhuman.</p>
<h2>Ritual of creation</h2>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/realpenpencil">Realpen Pencil</a>, who lives and works in Accra, is a young instant live drawing artist with a photographic memory. This description does no justice to the extraordinary ritual of creation I experienced while witnessing him working in the streets of Ga-Jamestown. This was a public act of creation in which, for hours, the artist was surrounded by cheering and at times impatient audiences.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Realpen Pencil in action.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Beyond the kinetic beauty of his performance, Realpen Pencil seemed to remind us the embodied nature of birthing works of the imagination.</p>
<p>In this our Instagram times of instant gratification where the ubiquity of image making structures and mediates our experience of things and times, it is important that makers such as Realpen Pencil exist. His process reminds us that the act of looking and capturing does not always have to be mechanical and veneered through digital filters.</p>
<h2>Blurring lines between fashion and art</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.thisisthenest.com/">Nest Collective</a> from Nairobi in Kenya is a cutting edge multidisciplinary art collective collapsing and blurring the uninteresting lines between fashion, film, music and visual arts. This collective describes itself as an army of thinkers. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘To catch a dream’ - a fashion film by the Nest Collective.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Their project of beauty, memory and imagination takes flight in the poignant film “To Catch A Dream”. It is a visual and sonic thrill that tells the tale of Ajuma, a grieving widow plagued by recurring nightmares. In bold narrative, sartorial and aesthetic moves, the talented director <a href="http://www.jimchuchu.com/">Jim Chuchu</a> creates a modish melancholic world, cadenced by multiple Eastern African languages spoken by the characters. </p>
<p>Very much like the broader concerns of the Nest Collective, this film accomplishes to experiment with ideas about multiple futures/pasts, that are conceived on aesthetic and conceptual daringly original terms. Seconds into the film the label “fashion film” peels away as you encounter the beautifully rendered interiority of Ajuma. She wrestles with the memory of a beloved, moored by the searing music from the original <a href="https://soundcloud.com/thisisthenest">soundtrack</a>.</p>
<h2>Creating new knowledge</h2>
<p>In a conversation with the co-director of <a href="http://accradotalt.tumblr.com/">Accra dot ALT</a> and producer of Chale Wote, <a href="http://accradotaltradio.com/tag/mantse-aryeequaye/">Mantse Aryeequaye</a>, Aryeequaye told me about the economic transformative infrastructures that Chale Wote offers the neglected community of Ga-Jamestown.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136566/original/image-20160905-15444-vqx6ga.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136566/original/image-20160905-15444-vqx6ga.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136566/original/image-20160905-15444-vqx6ga.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136566/original/image-20160905-15444-vqx6ga.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136566/original/image-20160905-15444-vqx6ga.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136566/original/image-20160905-15444-vqx6ga.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136566/original/image-20160905-15444-vqx6ga.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Chale Wote street festival has treated local people to cutting edge performance art, film screenings, talks, music events, photography, fashion and installations.</span>
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<p>Speaking about the evolution of the Chalo Wote over the past five years Aryeequaye asserts it important for young black people to create new knowledge. Aryeequaye reminded me of the fact that the whole of Ghana was once the Wall Street of the transatlantic slave trade. As such, the culture of exploitation is embedded within the psyche of the people.</p>
<p>Chalo Wote has sparked a lot of economic activities, but is also an important site for experimentation for artist/thinkers: an alternate space for radical imaginations and practice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64678/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nduka Mntambo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s Chale Wote festival’s main aim is to provide an alternative platform for the arts. It uses street arts to break creative boundaries and cultivate a wider audience for the arts in West Africa.Nduka Mntambo, Lecturer of Film and Television, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.