We are currently working on KONTEKST Film Fest, a festival of ethnographic and experimental film, art and thought, set to take place in February 2025.

This is the continuation of the Visual Anthropology Films festival which we organised in November 2023.

OPEN CALL

DEADLINE: 15 - 01 - 2025

We invite submissions from all who see, sense, and question critically.

The theme we have chosen for the upcoming festival is “ARCHIVE” but we welcome any kinds of submissions so that we can build our database and plan future editions.

Whether you use film, still images, performance, sound, scent, taste, your body, or any sensory media, we welcome work that disrupts the status quo, critiques “objective” truth, and reshapes how we experience and interpret the world.

Here are some prompts that we want to explore through this festival:

• What is an archive? What can count as archive?

• Can archives ever be neutral or objective? Who gets to archive what and whom - and why?

• How can we, in new ways, make use of already existing archives, that often have a violent history of hierarchical categorisation and extraction?

• What are there alternatives to the kind of archiving that relies on hegemonic and forceful classification?

When possible, we want to dedicate the platform to work by storytellers from communities that historically have been anthropology's subjects, but our collective is here for anyone and everyone who uses media to foster a fairer, more open society.

We are determined to prioritise work submitted by those who have not yet established themselves as artists - to reflect our grassroots ethos. We want KONTEKST to serve as a piece of infrastructure that you could use to amplify your message. For this festival we will reject submissions sent by already established artists and by production companies.

The venue we booked can host not just a film festival but also other activities such as: talks, workshops, discussions, body movement exercises, sound and art installations. We are open to your interesting ideas. If you want to help us out, please spread the word among your friends about this open call.

To be fully clear, as much as we want to do our best to accommodate you, we currently have no funding - so if you have something to show that would require a lot of production input, we would appreciate you helping us out with the logistics. Nevertheless, we are open to suggestions how we can use this space to facilitate critical dialogue. We are looking for projects of any formats (and seriously sky is the limit if you have a good idea) that will make us engage critically and in a context-aware manner with the main theme of the event. Make us think!

For the main film screening event, we will prioritise short films, particularly 3-15min long (but films up to 30min long will be considered too). This is due to practical reasons - we are a relatively new festival and we want to show a wide range of films in one evening. In the future, as we grow, we will happily screen longer films as well.

Please be aware that we will disqualify submissions that rely on AI generated content. At the same time, we welcome projects that engage with the subject of AI in an informed, context-aware and self-aware manners.

Our goal is to support you throughout this film festival - the visitors of our event will receive anonymous feedback forms so you should get plenty of insight on how your work is received, as well as potential new ideas for development.

When submitting your work, we will give you an option to have your work featured in our open-access online archive to further boost its reach and social impact. You can still be featured online even if your work is not selected for the festival event (if you wish so).

As an OPEN collective, we welcome those who submit their work to consider whether they would like to join us - for more information on who we are, please see our manifesto and framework.