Rituals

Rituals are found in the smallest actions of everyday life patterns. Rituals are the memories that live in our bodies. They are a deliberate effort to communicate, pass on family traditions, and ancestral knowledges and practices [Muttererde] or casting back to our connections with Spirit [Transitions II: Movement in Isolation]. However some rituals may not always be instrumental in providing beneficial psychological and spiritual functions – we may repeat negative self-talk and harmful messages to ourselves, questioning our worth or our place and existence on this earth [Aleta]. Rituals also exist on the tongue - perhaps in reiterating words, statements or affirmations [On The Surface], or embodying the ritual phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language [Hypnagogia Glossolalia]. Yet still, in order to advance a community towards utopia, some rituals may need changing, reinterpreting or leaving behind [Black Exodus]. These six films in our programme speak to the notion of ritual.

Flight

There are many ways in which individuals and communities respond to threat or to change - one response is to take flight. For some of us, it is to escape danger [Yuluu] and desperate situations brought on by corrupt governance [Aunque Me Vaya Lejos (Even If I Go Far)], for others it is to return to family and a familiar space [Velvet] or a birthplace, only to find it changed [Spring Steps].

Some of us have flown across continents and settled on “foreign” lands, in search of a different life [Saeculum]. We also fly, and move to stay alive [5 WAYS 2 Run]. The six films under this theme all address methods and results of movement and migration.

Protest

To protest is to express an objection to how things have been, presently are, or are becoming. It is in the organised gathering of public-show. It is in the commitment to archive history, herstory, theirstory, ourstory, refusing for these significant experiences to be forgotten, overlooked or buried [Agudas]. Protesting is using your ‘voice’ to highlight a discrepancy, shining a light on injustice [Framer Framed]. It is the act of countering a view [Elephant in the Room], as well as in resistance, remaining steadfast and staying-put in a place threatening to displace you [Clifford]. These four films all address the concept of protest in varying ways.

Self

The development of a concept of self has various aspects – the existential and the categorical Self. Therefore, Self has many meanings. Self can involve a deep introspection into who we are as separate and distinct entities from others, meditating on what makes us, us [Concept-tions]. These processes of conceptualising the Self can require the necessity to do what we need to do to remain afloat [Blue Corridor 15], or contradict what others expect of us [Selkie]. How we define ourselves is also wrapped up in culture, place and community [Schwarz]. We present to you four films that tackle the notion of Self.