On 7 July 2024, we hosted a panel entitled Cinema as a Participatory Space for Progressive Filmmaking and Aesthetic Film Education as part of the Cinema of Commoning Symposium. Below is an edited transcript of the conversation.

Unconventional thinking and progressive approaches have never been more important than they are today for keeping the cultural practice of cinema alive. To inspire and empower the next generation of artists and filmmakers, it is essential to reshape the landscape of film education. Additionally, we need experienced experts to pass on their knowledge and craftsmanship to younger generations to ensure the continuation of cinema as a cultural practice. Can the concept of “film education” be framed in a larger context that includes the inspiration and training of filmmakers, artists and other practitioners in the field of film mediation? What potential challenges and opportunities exist in implementing this vision, and how can they be addressed? How can new alliances and collaborations be created between cinemas and those involved in film production, distribution, and education to promote young, progressive cinematic approaches without relying on industry norms? In this panel, professionals working in the film education sector share their experiences and discuss, among other things, how networks for knowledge exchange and resource sharing could contribute to developing sustainable models for cultural and aesthetic film education.

Ibee Ndaw, Yennenga Centre (Dakar, Senegal)
Agnès Salson, La Forêt Électrique (Toulouse, France)
Dina Pokrajac, Dokukino KIC (Zagreb, Croatia)
Alejandro Bachmann, Lichtspiel/Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (Cologne, Germany)
Moderation: Malve Lippmann, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA (Berlin, Germany)

Malve Lippmann (SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA): When we think about the future of film education, it’s about more than just teaching techniques. I wanted us to tackle here how we can think of film education in a broader sense, as a way to encourage new perspectives, creativity, and collaboration. How can we enable this on a nationwide scale in Germany, through networks like Lichtspiel? How can we encourage creativity and innovation from the bottom up, instead of following the top-down approach typically favored by larger institutions? True innovation happens when we nurture small ideas. For instance, if you let your students take over a cinema, they might come up with ideas we could never imagine. This is what it’s about: enabling diverse perspectives and passing this knowledge onto future generations.

Agnès Salson (La Forêt Électrique): I’d like to elaborate on what you just said, particularly on the sense of community within cinemas. Yesterday, we discussed the physical experience of cinema going and how it can create new connections. Malve, you mentioned cinema as being something which connects people when introducing this panel, and that resonates a lot with me. In filmmaking, what people often miss isn’t just technical support or equipment—it’s the chance to meet creative minds and feel part of a community.

Malve: I believe these communities are where innovation begins: innovation in collaboration, aesthetics, and processes.

Dina Pokrajac (Dokukino KIC): It is about community, but also about demystifying the filmmaking process. Filmmaking is inherently collective work. At our school, we present it as a holistic activity, not split into discrete phases like editing or storytelling. I don’t think you can separate the making of the film from the way it’s represented, the analysis aspect. That’s how cinema becomes a space for reflection. Filmmakers often don’t really think about how audiences perceive their films, they’re not used to this immediate feedback, which I think  is very important for creative growth. This openness can be an advantage, especially when you lack traditional academic training, as it pushes you to explore material in new ways. Another focus of ours is the use of archives. We encourage participants to experiment with found footage and play around with their personal archives, which can often generate unexpected results.

Malve: This aligns a lot with the work Ibee does at Yennenga Centre—helping people to find their own narratives. You chose to screen Le Mouton de Sada as part of the Cinema of Commoning Film Program, a film post-produced at Yennenga Centre that offers a distinct, non-European gaze.

Ibee Ndaw (Yennenga Centre): At Yennenga, we see the films we work with in post-production as learning tools—not just for students studying post-production, but also for the filmmaker and the entire team working on the film. . It becomes a kind of case study. 

With Le Mouton de Sada, we collaborated with other spaces like Ciné Banlieue, a non-traditional film school where students collectively direct a film each year The director Pape Bouname Lopy is part of this initiative.  At Ciné Banlieue, they have a practice of watching a film every week, chosen by one of the students, followed by a discussion. Each year, the new group of trainees directs a film collectively, and Le Mouton de Sada is the first feature film made by the Ciné Banlieue crew. My colleague Sara Gadiaga is also part of Ciné Banlieue, and we often exchanges with other spaces in Dakar. 

Working on Lopy’s film was like a study of filmmaking in itself.  Lopy would join our sessions, and we’d screen and discuss each cut with the students and even people outside the program—administrative staff or others unfamiliar with cinema. They’d give feedback like, “I didn’t like that scene” or “I don’t understand this part.” So it was a really interesting process.

This approach can be complicated, especially if the director doesn’t want to play the game, but it’s an integral part of our work. Beyond our formal two-year education program, we run ongoing workshops. The trainers are often former students or filmmakers we admire. For instance, we collaborated with a school in Belgium (ERG – École de Recherche Graphique in Brussels), and it was really interesting, because they were not directors, they were all sculptors and visual artists. They filmed their journey building a structure in the desert and they sent their footage to our students, intending to collaboratively shape the film. We had a big conversation before, because they were saying, “We’re not directors or producers. We don’t want you to just execute our idea. We really want to have this conversation together, and just imagine the film together.” This was challenging for our students, as they weren’t used to being asked for their input throughout the process. The post-production, initially planned for three days, took seven. The resulting film was experimental and not everyone gets it. But we still really liked this intense way of working, and the students also liked having their voices heard a bit more.

More recently we’ve been working in another intense but rewarding way. We’ve collaborated with four different schools on one film project. The process starts with a week of scriptwriting and pitching to a jury made up of team members—people from the cinema hub, not necessarily from the film industry. One film is then selected to be shot and post-produced in a week, with a screening at the end. For many participants, this was their first experience with co-writing and co-directing. So it was really intense and less traditional than ways we have worked in the past.

Malve: This reminds me of a conversation we had recently about the concept of the “not-knowing teacher.” Alejandro, could you elaborate on that? It seems closely connected to these horizontal processes, which can be quite difficult or even fail.

Alejandro Bachmann (Lichtspiel/Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln): I often wonder what drives people to study film. Why not just say, “I want to make films”? Why also “I want to put together a film program” or “I want to work with children”? For me, this ties to a broader understanding of film—not as an industry but as a culture. At KHM (Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln), an art school, some teachers aim to prepare students for  the industry. That’s one approach to film education. But another is about establishing a film culture. 

For example, the Friedl Kubelka school was founded by Peter Kubelka, a renowned Austrian filmmaker, and her partner Friedl vom Gröller, a photographer, and is now run by queer artist-filmmaker Philip Fleischmann. The people that are studying in this school also have this very strong culture of not only making films. They shoot on analogue, but they also go to the cinema together and they also work with children.  It’s not about creating perfect films.  The first step is wanting to create something. Only then comes the question of how. It’s not the other way round. It’s not about first needing to understand how everything works before you can begin. I think this approach is connected to a specific culture: a culture of being together, seeing things together, discussing things together and making films together. From this, the need to learn certain skills can emerge organically—but not the other way around. The industry approach, by contrast, often prioritizes understanding editing techniques or mastering different types of cameras.  That creates not a culture of cinema, but an industry of cinema.

Malve: It’s also often about working within restrictions, isn’t it?

Dina: That reminds me of what Espinosa wrote about a cinema of imperfection.

Alejandro: Interestingly, there’s this quite renowned text by German filmmaker Alexander Krüger, which he wrote when two film schools in Germany were founded. He argued that the most important goal wasn’t just teaching technical skills—editing, directing, working with actors—but helping students become citizens of the world who reflect on reality, history and their surroundings. Filmmaking, at its core, should start there.

Audience Question: Are your educational programs free, or do students have to pay? Some people might not be able to afford workshops or courses.

Dina Pokuraj: All our programs are free, except for our six-month documentary film course, which has a participation fee of 266 euros. It’s a symbolic amount that covers work by 10 mentors and film professionals. Participants can also choose not to pay by volunteering at our cinema or on film sets.  For instance, one participant, Drago, chose to volunteer at our Docukino cinema. He’s still there, running the box office, and has become a kind of mascot, everyone knows him—he’s the first face you see when entering the cinema. Accessibility is very important to us.

Agnès: It’s the same for us. Our workshops are not free, but they’re affordable—€20-40 per day, with a pay-what-you-can option. Our residency is free and includes a grant and mentorship. Our open call is also free, and winners can access technical equipment, for example. We try to make it as accessible as possible.

Ibee:  The post-production training lasts for two years and is completely free. We were fortunate to receive a big grant from France, which allowed us not only to fund the program but also to pay participants. This was important because we realized that we were asking for a huge commitment— two years of intensive work on films. Senegal is not a wealthy country, so we decided the participants shouldn’t just attend for free; they should also receive compensation for their time. That’s why, in the end, we narrowed it down to just seven participants. Initially, we had17—then 16, after the tragic loss of a participant  who passed away while filming a project on sea migration to Europe. With a smaller group, everyone gets more hands-on practice, and the grant functions almost like a salary.. 

Our other workshops are also free. For example, the last workshop we did was mentored by Mamadou Dia, whose film Demba was at the Berlinale. He’s an incredible figure for filmmakers not only in Senegal but internationally. Despite being a teacher in the U.S., he agreed to mentor for free, as did everyone else who contributed to the workshop. We’re not sure how long we can sustain this model, but we’re exploring ways to make it sustainable in the long term.

Malve: That’s such a great point—I think sustainability is a question we all grapple with. At our cinema, a lot of workshop participants stay on and contribute in other ways, like working with us in different roles. It becomes a kind of ecosystem.

Agnès: That’s funny, what you’re saying about the relationship between workshops and screenings. I don’t know about you, but I would say that for many of our participants, their first encounter with us isn’t through attending a film screening but through joining a workshop. Even with “cinema” in our name, they might not realize we show films! But they step into the space through the act of creating, and that’s a really exciting way to reimagine how people connect with the idea of cinema. 

Audience Question: How do you select participants for the workshops? Do you often have more applications than spots?

Malve: Yes, we usually have far more applicants than we can take on. We select through an application process.

Dina: It’s the same for us. We have an open call,and receive around 50 to 60 applications, but we can only accept 10 participants. The selection process is quite thorough because it’s a long-term commitment, and we want to ensure the group is the right fit. The mentors have the task of deciding on which participants to choose, and we often include a small creative task as part of the application. Last year, for instance, we gave the topic “number two” and asked applicants to create a three-minute video using any device, like a phone or a camera. It’s not just about technical skill but about seeing how they approach the topic visually and conceptually.

Agnès: For us, it’s super important that workshops are not exclusively for students. It’s not a question of age or educational background. Sometimes we just set a minimum age, and everyone is welcome. There is a small fee, but the program is open to autodidacts and those who might not have access to formal education. This opens up space for people who may not have attended university or film school to engage with cinema. 

Audience Question: I have a more analytical question. I’m interested in the relationship between cultural education, film education, and critical thinking. Agnès, you mentioned perception, creativity and critical thinking earlier, and Alejandro, as a professor of history, I’d like to ask about the link between culture and critical thinking in relation to history. Is it about watching many films and reading around them, or about creating this social space we have been talking about or about developing a phenomenological way of viewing films? How can we foster critical thinking and how does this intersect with history and culture?

Alejandro: That’s a great question and it touches on something I’ve been reflecting on during our discussion. Earlier, I mentioned some students who became motivated to curate programs aligned with a queer activist group. This wasn’t something I directed them to do—it emerged from their experiences in seminars, such as those on the LA Rebellion, a film movement rooted in Black filmmakers from the 1960s and 1970s creating works deeply connected to their communities.  These films were made for and within those communities. 

This ties back to your question: the choice of films matter. For example,  showing Alfred Hitchcock might not be the best case study that evokes thoughts on film and social context. But screening De cierta manera by Sara Gómez— a Cuban film about the revolution—becomes a case when you think about the audience. It’s also about how we discuss the films: do we focus solely on aesthetics, or do we explore their social and political contexts? Critical thinking involves this question of how a specific aesthetic relates to a specific political situation. But without expanding beyond this very classical cinephile perspective, which is focused on the aesthetics of cinema or the beauty of the camera movements, we risk fostering cinephilia rather than a culture of film grounded in broader social understanding.

Audience Question:  I’d like to ask about the terminology of education. In German, we have Bildung and Vermittlung, which translate to education and mediation, among others. How do you approach these terms in your work? Did you intentionally choose Bildung for cultural film education, or have you considered alternatives like mediation?

Malve: I really like the term “transmission”, which came up recently in our discussion. Within the Lichtspiel group, we’ve debated the nuances between education and mediation, vermittlung und Bildung. 

Alejandro: This question—how to translate Vermittlung into English—is something we have been debating for years! I use “mediation,” but I’m not sure it fully captures the German concept. Bildung is a strong term because it implies this idea of a shared, collective process, whereas “learning” often suggests something more one-sided—an individual acquiring knowledge from someone else. That’s why I do think Bildung is a good term, somehow.

Malve: In Strasburg, the phrase “young talent development” kept coming up, and it made many of us uneasy.

Agnès: Yes, because it’s an industry term used by producers and festivals. It raises the question: how do we support creative individuals without suggesting others are not creative? To me, having artist workshops inside a cinema is about bringing the space to life.. It’s not just a screening room or a café but also a creative space. For me, what’s important is bringing young audiences to the cinema and placing creativity as something tangible and close to them—almost like having a living mediator for cinema. 

Audience Question: For those of you running workshops and training programs, are you focused on traditional film formats like 16:9, or are you also exploring newer formats, such as 9:16 for mobile and social media?

Agnès: This was a big issue in our team. While we train participants in traditional 16:9 filmmaking, for an open-call contest like Nanométrages, we adapted to context. . We asked participants to create films in the 9:16 format for sharing on platforms like Instagram, where one of our videos reached 100,000 views. Initially, participants were hesitant, saying, “Not this format!” But we showed them creative examples and explained that it’s an opportunity to experiment. It also ensures they create something specific for the contest, rather than repurposing a clip from a longer film. Ultimately, this format opened the door for new community engagement.

Malve: Yes, it’s a great example of how audience perspectives can innovate our approach. It shows how new formats can connect communities to filmmaking in unexpected ways. That feels like a perfect note to end on.

Alejandro Bachmann is a film worker focusing on teaching, writing and programming films. He led the “Education, Research and Publications” department at the Austrian Film Museum until 2018 and has served on various film festival selection committees. He is mentor of the Berlinale Talents Short Film Station, and he became a Professor of Film History and Film Theory at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in 2023. Alejandro is a (co-)editor of several publications and a board member of Lichtspiel – Netzwerk kulturelle Filmbildung. https://www.alejandrobachmann.com/.

Ibee Ndaw is a Gambian-born programmer. She graduated from the University Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle (MA in Film Studies) and from University Paris-Est-Créteil-Val-de-Marne. From 2019-2022 she held the position of Distribution Assistant and later Festival Manager at Sudu Connexion, while also running cinema workshops in elementary schools. In 2022, she joined the programming and organizing office of the Seytou Africa, Documentary Film Festival. In 2023, she served as a reader and translator for South African production companies (Big World Cinema, STEPS) and participated in Durban FilmMart where she evaluated feature projects. Additionally, she undertook the coordination of the second Pan-African edition of the Mobile Film Festival Africa held in Morocco. Since September 2023, she is the new coordinator of the Yennenga Centre. Ibee is also a programmer at Durban International Film Festival and an alumni of the Realness Institute.

Malve Lippmann is a freelance artist, curator and cultural manager. She studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and at the Institute for Art in Context (UdK) in Berlin. As a freelance stage designer and artist, she has designed numerous performances, opera and theater productions. Since 2010, Malve has been working as a curator and cultural manager, leading artistic workshops and seminars and is active in various cultural and community projects. She is Co-founder and Artistic Director of bi‘bak and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA in Berlin where she was responsible for various international programs, events and exhibitions such as Cinema of Commoning (since 2022), the documentary exhibition projects Sıla Yolu – The Holiday Transit to Turkey and the Tales of the Highway (2016-17) and Bitter Things – Narratives and Memories of Transnational Families (2018), Selected publications: Please Rewind – German-Turkish Film- and Video Culture in Berlin (Archive Books, 2020), Bitter Things – Narratives and Memories of Transnational Families (Archive Books, 2018).

Dina Pokrajac is a film critic and curator based in Zagreb. She majored in Journalism and Political Science and is a PhD candidate at the University of Zagreb with a thesis on counter-memory strategies and archival practices in post-Yugoslav documentaries. She works for Restart, an organization focused on production, education, distribution, and exhibition of documentary films and is the manager of Dokukino KIC. She is the artistic director of Subversive Festival, selector for ZagrebDox and has curated numerous interdisciplinary projects combining film and critical theory. She has edited over 20 books in the fields of philosophy, political science, and film theory. She is also the President of Croatian Film Critics’ Society.

Agnès Salson toured the cinemas of Europe with her partner Mikael Arnal to gather inspiring ideas and emerging practices, documented in their book Cinema Makers. Since last April, they further expanded their practices by launching Cinema Makers meetings, an international gathering of cinemas that are approaching the exhibition of films differently. They are now settled in Toulouse, where they launched La Forêt Électrique, a cinema to connect audiences and creative filmmaking through events, workshops, residencies and film screenings.