23.06.2026

CULTIVATING A CINEMATIC ECOSYSTEM: AN INTERVIEW WITH VIDEOBET’S BEZA HAILU LEMMA

Videobet is an arthouse cinema and film centre based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It began in February 2025 as a bi-monthly curated screening programme, hosted at a local multiplex. Since its inception, the initiative has focused on presenting a diverse selection of Ethiopian and international independent films. Following the opening of its own 200-seat cinema […]

18.06.2026

CREATING A SPACE FOR MULTIPLE PRACTICES: AN INTERVIEW WITH EL GALPÓN SALA DE CINE’s DIANA DAF COLLAZOS

El Galpón (elgalpon.espacio, or, El Galpón Espacio) is an independent, self-managed space in Lima dedicated to contemporary and dissident cinematic practices, emerging from a collective site of artistic creation with a nineteen-year history. Its programme brings together cinema, performance, and critical thought, fostering encounters between artists and diverse communities. We spoke with Diana Daf Collazos, […]

16.06.2026

FULFILLING THE NEEDS OF A CITY: AN INTERVIEW WITH CINE TONALÁ’S JUAN PABLO BASTARRACHEA

Cine Tonalá opened in 2012 in Mexico City. It is a cultural space with cinema at its core, while also bringing together gastronomy, music, stand-up and theatre. Beyond screening films, it is involved in film production and distribution, creating a creative hub for the local community. We spoke with its co-founder Juan Pablo Bastarrachea about […]

09.06.2026

FILM CULTURE AS A SOURCE OF EQUITY: AN INTERVIEW WITH MAYSLES DOCUMENTARY CENTER’S KAZEMBE BALAGUN

Maysles Documentary Center (MDC) presents documentary and experimental films alongside occasional narrative works, that amplify marginalized voices, confront injustice, and explore both the possibilities and the limits of the form. It foregrounds documentary cinema’s capacity to challenge dominant histories and to imagine more liberatory futures, with a particular focus on emerging filmmakers of colour, while […]

03.06.2026

BRINGING A HISTORIC SPACE BACK TO LIFE: AN INTERVIEW WITH CINE MAYAKA’S PHILBERT AIMÉ MBABAZI SHARANGABO

Cine Mayaka, formerly known as Cine Elmay, was built in 1977 in Kigali, Rwanda. After years of decline, this iconic venue was brought back to life in 2023 by Imitana Productions, the organisers of Kigali Cine Junction. Located at the entrance to Nyamirambo, Kigali’s vibrant and ever-evolving urban quarter, the cinema stands within a colourful […]

27.05.2026

CULTURAL VENUES ARE PLACES FOR ENCOUNTER: AN INTERVIEW WITH KÜLT KAVAKLıDERE’S OKAN İLHAN AND İLHAN KAYA

Kült Kavaklıdere is a cultural landmark that reimagines the former Kavaklıdere Cinema, which has been closed since 2007, while preserving a deep connection to Ankara’s cultural history. Since June 2023, it has served as a vibrant meeting point for interpersonal and interdisciplinary dialogue, hosting a wide range of events and seeking to strengthen the city’s […]

22.05.2026

FOSTERING COMMUNITY AND CRITICAL THINKING THROUGH CINEMA: AN INTERVIEW WITH MINIKINO’S FRANSISKA PRIHADI

Minikino is a Denpasar, Bali-based organisation dedicated to the dissemination of short films. Active since 2002, it operates across exhibition, education, and community engagement, collaborating with art house cinemas and public spaces transformed into screening venues. Through both local and transnational exchanges, Minikino links communities, practitioners, and audiences within a wider short film network. We […]

13.05.2026

Cinema of Commoning 3: Introducing Our 2026 Partners!

Cinema of Commoning enters its third edition. In July 2026, we will gather at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA in Berlin-Wedding to brainstorm, exchange ideas, watch films, and engage in discussion with film professionals and cinema enthusiasts from around the world. Together, we will develop new cinematic approaches and share moments in which cinema becomes truly commoned: not […]

28.03.2026

CINEMA OF COMMONING RETURNS, 2–5 July 2026 — SAVE THE DATE!

Cinema of Commoning is a project by SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA and various international partners that brings together a network of alternative cinema spaces and practices from around the world to share knowledge and ideas. After successful editions in 2022 and 2024, Cinema of Commoning will return this year for a third edition to expand its global […]

20.11.2025

Death on VHS

Standing in front of the boarded up store in the West Beirut neighbourhood where he grew up in the 1980s, a filmmaker remembers the VHS tapes inside, all those dreams and monsters. A personal reflection on video, cinema and memory.

By Rami el Sabagh

24.09.2025

Living in Ghurba with Divas

Whether you are exiled or not, it is said that you live in ghurba, as soon as you move away from where you are from. It is a sensation familiar to the great divas of Egyptian popular cinema, whose attempts at reinvention collide with the inescapable pull of home.

By Iskandar Abdalla

16.05.2025

Summoning Cinema

Imbued with utopian potentiality, fulgor is a dazzling brightness, a rupture that harbors the possibility of unexpected encounters from the margins. It is mutable, nomadic and precarious. So is cinema.

By Sílvia das Fadas

28.02.2025

Breaking the Frame: Founding a Women’s Film Festival in Kazakhstan

A personal reflection on the birth of a film festival — a triumph of hope and resourcefulness in the face of financial barriers and political indifference.

By Malika Mukhamejan

13.11.2024

The Political Promise of Present Cinema

At times of deep uncertainty and alienation, does cinema continue to offer the promise of political potentiality? A search for a more equitable and accountable cinema.

By Jowe Harfouche

07.11.2024

A Cinema Without Walls

When do cinemas serve communities, and when do they serve capital? A stroll amongst the ghosts and zombies of Ghent’s cinematic history.

By Lennart Soberon

31.10.2024

Towards a Film Community Where Everyone Does the Dishes Together

Reflections on precarity, collectivity, labour and cameraderie from The Social Life of Film.

By Gawan Fagard

25.07.2024

Whose Politics? Alternative Arab Cinemas

Alternative cinemas, so the initial assumption goes, show alternative films. Yet, by what standard might these cinemas and films be considered alternative?

By Irit Neidhardt

03.07.2024

Coconut Head Generation: The Agonists of the Undercommons

The agonists of the undercommons are the voices you hear criticizing the authoritarian tendencies in colonial institutions. What happens when agonists – in this case a group of Nigerian students – come together to resist the individualization of the University.

By Abisola Oni

26.06.2024

Fugitive Futures: Some Notions of a Caribbean Cinema Yet To Be

Any speculation about a future Caribbean cinema must begin with an underlying assumption: that there is such a thing as Caribbean cinema. This is not as self-evident or as straightforward as it seems.

By Jonathan Ali

20.05.2024

The Mother of All (White) Lies?

Asmae El Moudir’s film uses performative documentary and re-enactment to find a highly creative way to unravel collective memory in the face of absence.

By Viola Shafik

10.05.2024

Smashed Burgers, Flat Hierarchies, Big Dreams

At the Strasbourg Cinema Makers conference 2024, we encounter  eye opening ideas from venues who are approaching film exhibition differently.

By Duncan Carson

07.05.2024

Breaking the Waves: On Vera Dreams of the Sea

A surge of female voices has entered the cinematic landscape, bringing fresh perspectives and narratives which delve into various aspects of Kosovar society, culture and identity.

By Bengi Muzbeg

15.04.2024

On Caucasus Chronicles and Azerbaijani Cinema

With this program we wanted to explore the Caucasus through a collection which could unravel the complexities of identity, tradition and resistance.

By Leyli Gafarova

09.04.2024

Le Mouton de Sada: A Cinephile’s Journal

I watched a film.

In it, a child tells his father that he doesn’t want the sheep raised for Tabaski to be slaughtered: it’s his friend. He calls it “Dou.”

By Mamadou Sellou Diallo

28.03.2024

Editor’s Note: What to Expect from Cinema of Commoning 2

We’ve been here before. In June 2022, we gathered at the former SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA space, in the Haus der Statistik in Berlin-Mitte, joined by film professionals and cinema enthusiasts from around the world. Together, we swapped ideas, watched films together, ate side by side and explored the boundless possibilities of cinema…

26.01.2024

Announcement: Cinema of Commoning Returns in 2024!

Initiated by bi’bak and international partners, Cinema of Commoning is a project which brings together a network of alternative cinema initiatives from around the world to share knowledge and ideas.

22.06.2022

One Hundred Children Waiting For a Train: The Education of the Gaze

Every Saturday morning, throughout the final years of Chile’s dictatorship, one hundred children of the Hermida settlement, a poor and oppressed neighbourhood in Santiago, get together in a chapel to watch films.

By Antonia Girardi

21.06.2022

A World Not Ours: a Biography of Palestinian frustration

A World Not Ours (2012) begins with a high angle shot looking down on Ain Al-Hilweh, the largest Palestinian camp in Lebanon 3 km southeast of Sidon, from a nearby peak. It shows the young director accompanied by his father, who explains to him in a tour guide style the geography of the place he had managed to escape many years before. 

By Husam Hilali

21.06.2022

Majub’s Journey: A Little Known Life

Eva Knopf’s 45-minute documentary Majub’s Journey (2013) tells the incredible story of Majub bin Adam Mohamed Hussein, or Mohamed Husen, as he later came to call himself. Majub was born in German East Africa in the early 20th century, and died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the age of forty.

By Berke Göl

17.06.2022

Remake, Remix, Rip-Off: On Copy Culture & Turkish Pop Cinema

Cinema in Turkey was at its prime in the 1960s and 70s. In 1972, as many as 350 films were produced. During this period, the country’s film industry, known as “Yeşilçam” was notorious for its remakes, remixes, and rip-offs. 

By Berke Göl

16.06.2022

The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On: A Brief History of History Writing

After his return from the war, Kenzo Okuzaki chose to oppose Emperor Hirohito, the man he believed was responsible for war and loss. After firing his slingshot at the Emperor, Kenzo served thirteen years in prison for manslaughter. Upon his release however, he remained obsessed with the idea of resisting the Emperor.

By Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa

15.06.2022

Beyond My Steps: Towards a new identity

In Beyond My Steps (2019), directed by Kamy Lara, five Angolan dancers explore the concepts of tradition, culture, memory and identity. Throughout the film, they incessantly question the transformation and deconstruction of these themes in their own lives. The film follows the creation of the 2017 show (De)Construction, choreographed by Mónica Anapaz from the Contemporary Dance Company of Angola.

by Vanessa Sanches

02.06.2022

Romania, Mon Amour

Alexandru Belc’s observational documentary Cinema, Mon Amour invites us to follow the daily life of Victor Purice, the administrator of Cinema Dacia Panoramic from Piatra-Neamț, one of the few old cinemas still standing in Romania. While the film serves as an indirect portrait of the current state of Romanian cinemas, on a deeper level it is also a subtle reflection of Romania itself.

by Oana Tarce

30.05.2022

The Meetings with The Archive

Since the collective was founded in 2003, archiving and preservation has served as one of the main foundations of Forum Lenteng. By copying and screening materials related to the history of Indonesian cinema, Forum Lenteng has served as a distributor of archive film, helping this work reach other collectives and anyone who is enthusiastic about the history of cinema in this country.

by Hafiz Rancajale