TABLE 1:
Pinkwashing and Tokenism: Making Space for Critical Voices
Silicone Pussy and Tin Spirit, LUBE VISIONS (Berlin, Germany)
We will begin with a short introduction to Lube Vision and its context, sharing our experience of organizing a non-budget festival and reflecting on how tokenism shapes cultural production—not only through representation, but by limiting which critiques and political positions become possible. We will discuss how institutions and collectives can make space for difficult or critical voices without neutralizing them, as well as practical ways to move beyond symbolic inclusion and build more meaningful participation. A collective card game will be introduced during the discussion, through play, participants will reflect on how power structures shape participation.

TABLE 2:
Practical Approaches to Running a Cinema Space
Juan Pablo, Cine Tonalá, (Mexico City, Mexico)
What stops you from programming your dream projects? This table will focus on some of the practical aspects of running an independent cinema space, including budget management, developing sustainable structures, and exploring non-conventional approaches to ensure long-term financial stability, creative funding, sponsors, alternative business models. Also we will see examples of strategic programming that will help make a difference for the audience between your cinema and other similar options. The session will offer a space for exchange, with insights and learnings shared from the experience of Cine Tonalá, while also creating an open discussion around the challenges, strategies, and experiences of participants. Together, we will explore different models, creative solutions, and everyday practices that help cultural spaces remain resilient and adaptable.

TABLE 3:
Towards Curation as Care and Curatorial justice
Themba Bhebhe, consultant and programmer (Berlin, Germany)
With curation comes responsibility: for the images and discourses that are legitimised through curatorial decision-making, for the real-world impacts of the narratives, perspectives, and imagery that are selected and amplified, and for the power of film not only to shape behaviour but also to affect audience well-being. Engaging with questions of curatorial harm, documentary accountability, and cultural safety, this session offers an initial entry point into the concept and practice of curatorial justice.

TABLE 4:
CINE V CLUB: Mobile Cinema as Network: Models, Experiences, Questions
Patrik Thomas, CINÉ VÉLO CITÉ (Munich, Germany)
CINÉ VÉLO CITÉ / CINEVAN is a mobile cinema and film laboratory based in Munich. It connects sustainable mobility, film education, and the temporary appropriation of public space.
At this station, we invite you to compare models of mobile cinema practice. How do you fund such projects? Which partnerships sustain them? And how can cinema function as a space of encounter without a permanent venue? Bring your own experiences with mobile formats.

TABLE 5:
Alternative Distribution and Access: Rethinking Film Circulation Beyond Traditional Markets
Rehana Esmail, Cinelogue (Berlin, Germany)
This table will focus on alternative distribution models that expand access to films often excluded from dominant circulation channels. Drawing from the work of Cinelogue, we will discuss how historically underdistributed films can reach new audiences through collaborative curation and alternative licensing approaches. Participants will also gain insight into identifying rights holders, negotiating licensing agreements, and navigating the practical challenges of bringing difficult to find films back into circulation.

TABLE 6:
Curatorial Approaches: Engaging with Archives and Expanded Formats
Lisabona Rahman, archivist (Berlin, Germany)
Exploring new curatorial perspectives on working with archives, historical materials, and expanded forms of presentation. The session focuses on programming with analog film and on how archival practices can be reinterpreted through contemporary exhibition and screening formats.

TABLE 7:
Analog Film: Preservation and Workflows
Florian Höhensteiger, Bundesarchiv/SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA (Berlin, Germany)
Exploring the role of cinemas in preserving, archiving, and making analog film accessible. This session introduces the challenges of working with analogue materials, including preservation basics, archival strategies, and restoration decisions. Participants will learn about the workflows behind our archive practices, including the use of the viewing and editing table, and how films are selected, preserved, processed, and presented for future audiences.

TABLE 8:
Playing with Film: Creating Playgrounds for Young Children
Tessa van Grafhorst,Taartrovers (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
A film education experience exploring light, movement, and the moving image. Participants engage with film through playful experimentation — discovering how light can be shaped, transformed, and used as a creative tool for storytelling and visual expression.

TABLE 9:
Documentary Association of Europe: Alternative Distribution & Exhibition Strategies for Documentary Film
Brigid O’ Shea, Documentary Association of Europe (Berlin, Germany)
Exploring new approaches to documentary film circulation beyond traditional distribution models. This session looks at pitching strategies, the connections between production and exhibition, and ways to build stronger networks with Global Majority filmmakers, audiences, and communities.

TABLE 10:
Around the Fire: Cinema as Commoning
Gawan Fagard and Gwendolyn Lootens, Cinemaximiliaan/Fireplace Cinema (Brussels, Belgium)
During this session, we’ll start from the hypothesis that before cinema, there was fire. Starting from this foundational moment of shimmering light in the dark, sparking effect, imagination and human connection, we will share our practices and thoughts on cinema as commoning. How to make cinema away from the hegemony of capitalist extractivism and hypervisibility, and build a space where the right for opacity and refusal can thrive as much as the right to see and share? Based on a set of such questions in combination with our own lived experience, we’ll try to conceptualize and visualize our practices and thoughts into a mindmap.

TABLE 11:
Solidarity and Mutual Support: The Social Life of Film
Johanna Markert and carrick bell, anorak (Berlin, Germany)
What if the social life of film is not just a feature but its sole enabler? This table draws on material from THE SOCIAL LIFE OF FILM, a congress for independent screening initiatives which took place at anorak and Aktionshaus in Berlin in November 2025, and was organized by hosts Johanna Markert and carrick bell along with Lukas Ludwig and Kristofer Woods. We will examine the social infrastructures that facilitate moving image practices typically excluded from commercial platforms and state funded institutions. Through prompted conversations and small group exchange, participants are invited to reflect on the forms of solidarity and mutual support that exist within their practices.

TABLE 12:
Get to Know F-Sides Through Playing with ConquistadorX and Film RemiX
Alexa Cardaș and Georgiana Madin Vrăjitoru, F-Sides (Bucharest, Romania)
This workshop presents two experimental projects that offer different ways of engaging with the same film, Bend It Like Beckham. First, participants will explore ConquistadorX, a gamified educational platform that combines film and gender studies through interactive challenges, quizzes and storytelling. Originally developed for youth cineclubs, the platform encourages audiences to learn about cinema by playing. The second part introduces Film RemiX, a live performance format where audiences reinterpret film scenes through commentary, dubbing, music, comedy or other creative responses. Participants will be invited to watch a short sequence and create their own live interpretation. The workshop includes a short demo of the game platform and a hands-on Film RemiX exercise, giving participants the chance to experience both formats firsthand.

TABLE 13:
Cinema Landspaces: Navigating Cinema Spaces in a Capitalist Landscape
Galo E. Rivera, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA and Giang Quang Vinh, artist (Berlin, Germany)
An interactive reflection on how communities and audiences move through different spaces within the cinematic landscape — from film clubs and community cinemas to institutional cinemas, commercial cineplexes, and film institutions. The game explores questions of ownership, access, and participation: How do communities create and sustain common spaces? What happens when cultural places become investment objects? How do we negotiate the relationship between audiences, workers, communities, and the structures that shape where and how films are experienced?

TABLE 14:
Scalarama Leeds: Celebration of DIY Community-Led Cinema
Mosa Mpetha, Hyde Park Picture House (Leeds, United Kingdom)
This station talks about how a DIY, co-operative, volunteer-led organisation ‘by everyone, for everyone’, supports people across Leeds to screen the films they love, in a celebration of community-led cinema, skills sharing and pop-up film programmes. Mini projects and the use of non-traditional venues are encouraged as new ways to creatively engage diverse audiences. The wider range of people putting on films, the more interesting the films the city has to offer.

TABLE 15:
W.I.R. Presents the East: The Werdau Film Festival ‘Kino Central’
Phương Thúy Nguyễn, Vo Thi Mai Trang and Angelika Kim, W.I.R. – Werdauer Initiative gegen Rassismus (Werdau, Germany)
The Werdau Film Festival “Kino Central” tells the story of the East as it was, as it is, and as it could be—in all its colors and complexities. It is a place where stories from and about the East find a home, a screen, and a space for imagining new futures. Through the festival, we aim to open up new perspectives on an East that has too often remained untold. At the same time, we provide a platform for emerging filmmakers to share their stories and bring new images of the East to the screen.