SILENT SCREENING WORKSHOPS
'This is oral history done right." - Die Volkrant review/IDFA on Stage
The Non-Aligned Newsreels workshops are an invitation to archivists, artists and filmmakers to come together to interpret, rethink and re-appropriate the archive together with participants from countries where the archives were filmed. They are conceptualised as silent screenings inviting live performances of improvised commentaries, reaffirming the counter-narrative power of oral histories.
The concept was developed by Mila Turajlic, the project creator, and Maja Medic, co-creator and creative producer within the Cph:Lab in 2021 under the mentorship of Katerina Cizek, Artistic Director, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab. An initial exploration took place via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic, as online collaborative workshops with artists and activists from Ghana, Ethiopia and Algeria. The first in-person workshop took the form of a public event, performed live at IDFA on Stage in November 2022.
Since then, a number of workshops have taken place in cities including Algiers, Cairo and Belgrade. In each case a public call is made for participants, who are invited to encounter the archival materials that are still being scanned from the holdings of the Yugoslav Newsreels, filmed during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Each iteration was organized around a theme. We aim to bring together people of all ages, interested in sharing their family stories and in exploring the social and personal memories of non- alignment, as well as new political imaginaries for the future. In this process, a silent visual history is reactivated through oral storytelling in the present in a collaborative space.
The workshop are filmed and presented as video installations, conceptualized as elements of an upcoming exhibition.
The concept was developed by Mila Turajlic, the project creator, and Maja Medic, co-creator and creative producer within the Cph:Lab in 2021 under the mentorship of Katerina Cizek, Artistic Director, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab. An initial exploration took place via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic, as online collaborative workshops with artists and activists from Ghana, Ethiopia and Algeria. The first in-person workshop took the form of a public event, performed live at IDFA on Stage in November 2022.
Since then, a number of workshops have taken place in cities including Algiers, Cairo and Belgrade. In each case a public call is made for participants, who are invited to encounter the archival materials that are still being scanned from the holdings of the Yugoslav Newsreels, filmed during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Each iteration was organized around a theme. We aim to bring together people of all ages, interested in sharing their family stories and in exploring the social and personal memories of non- alignment, as well as new political imaginaries for the future. In this process, a silent visual history is reactivated through oral storytelling in the present in a collaborative space.
The workshop are filmed and presented as video installations, conceptualized as elements of an upcoming exhibition.
Run in collaboration with Filmske Novosti with the support from the Sharjah Art Foundation and Columbia University Institute for Ideas & Imagination
Cairo workshop, January 2024
 Algieran war workshop @ Theatre Nationale de Bretagne, Rennes, September 2023
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Algiers workshop, December 2022
Workshop with African scholarship students in Belgrade, April 2023
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Non-Aligned Newsreels: Fragments #2 – New Voices from the Summit,
November 2022
curated for IDFA on Stage
performed at De Balie, Amsterdam
November 2022
curated for IDFA on Stage
performed at De Balie, Amsterdam
59th Oktobarski salon (Belgrade Biennale)
October 30 to December 4, 2022
curated by KCB collective
Exhibited at Radio Belgrade Gallery
October 30 to December 4, 2022
curated by KCB collective
Exhibited at Radio Belgrade Gallery
