Decolonizing cinema and the utopic future of antiracist feminist filmamking

Conversation with directors, performers and protagonists of films included in the Possible Utopias program: Arami Ullón, Mihaela Drăgan & Thirza Jean Cuthand (filmmakers) | Arhanghella, Raisa Mihai & Julio Elvisey Pisică (performers). Co-curator of the program Mariam Agamyan will be present at the discussion as well.

Moderated by co-curator of the program Augistina Vasyle.

We invite you to a conversation with some of the artists involved in the creation of films featured in the Possible Utopias program. Together with filmmakers, performers and protagonists of the four video projects we will be exploring the importance of their work for amplifying stories of the communities and cultures that have been oppressed, silenced and pushed aside consistently across history. What are the challenges of telling these stories? What are the advantages of a first person perspective in filmmaking? What brings these geographically distant artists together and what tells them apart? A 90-minute talk, followed by a Q&A session.

Participants

Mihaela Drăgan is a film director, multidisciplinary artist with an education in theatre who lives in Bucharest and works in several other countries. In 2014, she founds Giuvlipen Theatre Company, for which she is an actress and playwright, together with other Roma actresses. Mihaela is also a trainer for Theatre of the Oppressed method, and she works with Roma women on their specific issues in Romania.

Film director Thirza Jean Cuthand (b. 1978 Regina SK) makes videos, films, and performance art, about sexuality, madness, Queer identity, love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals and galleries internationally. She completed her BFA majoring in Film/Video at ECUAD in 2005, and her MA in Media Production at X University in 2015. She is a Whitney Biennial 2019 artist. She is Plains Cree/Scots , a member of Little Pine First Nation, and resides in Toronto, Canada.

Arhanghela is a fashion and design student at the University of Arts in Bucharest and a performer. She has recently joined Giuvlipen’s team as part of the Girls’ Resistance project, where she acted in one of the episodes. She makes art and is art and she states about herself that her existence is a form of protest in this racist and transphobic environment in which we live.

Raisa Mihai is a singer and actress, who graduated from the Bucharest National Music University, Classical Guitar section. She is a member of the ARTissimo Guitar Duo. She made her film debut at the age of nine: she starred in the movie “HO HO HO” and went on to star in the German production Nelly's adventures, À Bras Ouverts, a French production or in the short film “Written / Un-Written”. Her theater debut came in the theater company Giuvlipen in Gadjo Dildo.

Julio Elvisey Pisică is an interdisciplinary artist, enrolled at the Timișoara Faculty of Music and Theatre. He is a peer-trainer within the Erasmus+ project, “(Roma) Heroes in Theater Education and Everyday Life”. His poems have appeared in several publications in Romania and abroad. Also he was part of the team, who created the script for “Sexodrom”, one of Giuvlipen’s latest performances. In the last few years he started to experiment independently with sound and musical production.

Mariam Agamian - independent blogger, stand up comedian, playwright, co-curator of Kviradio.

Photo of the discussion moderator Augistina Vasyle

Augistina Vasyle is a freelance cultural communicator and an arts community nurturer based in Romania. She just established a small company and is currently working on developing a professional guidance program for emerging artists regardless of their access to resources. She uses her skills to amplify voices of projects and initiatives that make a change in the world. This is how she started collaborating with Giuvlipen - the first independent Roma feminist theater company in Romania. She believes in the superpower of bringing people together and her vision of the future is a place where artists, creatives and makers are supported to have thriving professional lives.