Decolonising The Film Archives – Panel Discussion

From the 40-year screening ban of a unique documentary film with rare testimonies of Sinti Holocaust survivors from the early 1980s. To 50-year-old footage of Independent Romani filmmakers own family members and community available to them to critique and use in their own artistic practice at the cost of £6,000 – per minute of the footage.

These are just few examples of how social power relations play a decisive role in archives. They shine a light on the structural and inherent violence towards marginalised people within film archives. The presumption in the sole right of ownership of images and voices exclude marginalised people from accessing them and preserve distorted information created from racist perspectives.
This panel will take a critical look at the historical representation of Sinti and Roma in a German television context and will also explore how contemporary independent filmmakers from marginalised perspectives are re-claiming and dealing with archives in their own practice and in creating their own counter narratives aimed at preserving collective cultural memories.

With:

Vera Lacková
Director and Producer of “How I became a Partisan”

Ufuk Cam
Co-Author and Archive Producer of “Love, Deutschmarks and Death”

Monika Preischl
Archive producer, researcher and founding member of the German Researchers and Archive Producers GRAP e.V

Moderation :

Maisha-Maureen Auma