Stronger Together: Collectives and Mobilizing Around the World

Filmmakers perpetually face challenges from fundraising to pairing up with solid partners, managing post-production details and legal requirements, and launching and promoting their final work, not to mention simple job security in a world of contract work. Filmmakers from the Global South and from underrepresented groups also face the colossal task of trying to shift well-worn narratives about their communities, homes, and lives. But we don't have to do this alone. One of the most powerful and simplest strategies to tackling these difficulties involves deliberately coming together to pool resources, share knowledge, and perhaps most importantly, provide intangible encouragement for each other's projects and cheerleading for each other's successes.

In this session, we’ll hear from members of different collectives that were formed in order to move member projects, careers, and companies forward in strategic and coordinated ways. What problems are these collectives trying to address? What methods are they using to do so? What have they been able to accomplish and build? What setbacks have they faced along the way? Most importantly, how are they setting up models for relationships that when replicated on a larger scale, will help us move towards a more just and distributed future?

Moderator: Pulkit Datta (Tikkun Olam Productions)

Panelists: Mohamed Ouma (DocA/East Africa Screen Collective), Laura Kloeckner (SAVVY Contemporary/United Screens), Melissa Adeyemo (Yetu Collective), and Ya-ting Hsu (Taipei Documentary Filmmakers Union)