08/08/2024
On Aug 7th, the DokuFest audience had the amazing opportunity to follow a masterclass by Sylvain George, a director and a researcher from Lyon who has worked extensively on the theme of migration and social issues with an immaculate touch of intertwining elaborate themes into explanatory images.
His background in philosophy and other multidisciplinary fields informed the main talking points of his masterclass referring to the postmodern society and the themes of identity, power dynamic and how knowledge production are all intertwined. Artists and activists strive for visibility and exposure to challenge the dominant narratives and create new narratives, truer and more authentic for marginalized communities.
On the theme of knowledge production: decolonizing it, in certain communities where there needs to be a keen observant eye to history and its many sensibilities is crucial, because it helps in presenting many realities in a more ethical manner.
While delving into his filmmaking practices and the general observation of representing societal issues, George spoke about how democracies (the lack of them) can lead to crisis of power especially when it comes to representation on film about immigration policies or green issues (like in Morocco, a theme George referred to in details).
In his lecture he spoke about perspectives of identity and power regarding the redistribution of wealth, the complexities of nationality and identity and Western ethics and economics. Throughout his work, George seeks to present the image that explains the realities in their presence and absence without following the need to represent identity issues just through factual monitoring of people or practices.
In the second part of his masterclass, we followed up on themes of childhood and progress in post-colonial societies, while emphasizing the need to question these concepts and imagine alternative ways of understanding childhood experiences in referring to the power of narratives that shape our realities.
Often referring to Walter Benjamin and Donna Haraway, this masterclass directed its discourse on the modalities and tools used to erase, repeat and intertwine historical representation and cultural production that shapes the always-told narratives clashing in societies struggling with crisis of identity, or are in the process of breathing in a new sense of selfhood and ways of being.
The audiences tackled the theme on the importance and the ways the filmmaker would select the subject and how he would rehabilitate the story so that it would be the one in the forefront shaping the meaning and its factuality while the answer in itself would always lead the creator or filmmaker to look at the roots and origins of the clashes between power struggles and ways that youth seeks a sense of their own imprint in the historical narrative.
An afternoon that made us think about the power of image, especially when it intertwines with social and political context that shape the form, but also regenerate the content in itself.
By: Blerina Kanxha
Photo: Elmedina Arapi
