Offline Glasgow

Still time to get involved in the Scottish Cultural Sector Day of Action!

We the undersigned Scottish cultural organisations reaffirm our commitment to the cause of Palestinian and Lebanese liberation, in the face of a year of Israel’s intensification of its genocidal and colonial project, aided by weapons made here in Scotland. We demand the government legislates a FULL ARMS EMBARGO NOW!
We reaffirm our commitment to the principles of the cultural boycott of Israel (PACBI), a vital tool in fighting the cultural legitimation of Israel. Endorsing PACBI is the most immediate way we in the Scottish cultural sector can take a stand and use our collective power to say NO MORE.
We commit to disrupting business as usual in the arts through collectivising within our sector, work stoppage and reinvesting our labour towards Palestinian liberation, amplifying Palestinian and Lebanese voices, & in the face of the destruction of Gaza’s cultural heritage, saying
NO CULTURE WITHOUT PALESTINIAN CULTURE!
We call upon all Scottish cultural organisations to join us today to SPEAK OUT, use your platforms - social media, mailing list, window space, institutional forums to stand proudly in solidarity with those affected by Israeli aggression and demand that our larger cultural institutions in the sector listen to their workers, artists and audiences and finally BREAK THEIR SILENCE.

CLOSING PARTY!

Our CineRoma festival headline tonight is the Roma epic, Latcho Drom from 1993, curated in collaboration with Romano Lav Youth Film Programming Group .voice

Doors: 6pm
Party: 8pm

All welcome, pay-what-you-can £0-£8

Latcho Drom is a feature length semi-documentary epic, directed by Tony Gatlif and released in 1993. Completed in co-production with many countries and companies, the film stresses the motif of transition on many levels, and depicts its concrete and abstract synonyms with specific regard to the Roma community (the act of hybridisation, liminal states, in-between situations, travelling and fluid identities, intercultural dialogue, cross-cultural adaptation and appropriation, multilingual cultural practices, etc.).

Gatlif, who is himself Kabil Roma, proves to be an authentic expert, first of all, in presenting the Roma communities living in the Mediterranean region. While depicting his protagonists as humane, realistic and positive figures, he has made a quasi anthropological and ethnomusicological film in the form of a road movie about the Roma who took a historical journey through Asia and Europe, from their original roots in India to destinations in Turkey, Eastern and Western Europe.

Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and National Lottery funding from the BFI and National Lottery Community Fund, Awards For All. Part of Govanhill International Festival & Carnival

CineRoma OPENING GALA TONIGHT

Doors: 7pm

Carmen, No Fear of Freedom
Carmen, Sin Miedo a la Libertad
by Irene Baqué

+

Short film by the Roma Youth Filmmaking Group with

Stick around for refreshments after! See you there.

Part of Govanhill International Festival & Carnival, supported by Film Hub Scotland

O BARIPEN - screening as part of CineRoma 2.0 for Govanhill International Festival & Carnival 2024

Saturday 10th August, 4pm

Elena Lacková (1921–2003) was a prominent Romani writer, playwright and social worker. Her great-granddaughter, Alžběta Ferencová alias Zea, is a singer, dancer and actress. The film draws parallels between two family-related women who, despite social prejudices, dedicate their lives to artistic creation. Through archival materials and the stories of witnesses, the difficult fate of Elena Lacková is revealed: from growing up in a Roma settlement, through the period of the Roma Holocaust, to her emancipatory work under communism. The poetic narrative reveals how the personal can take on political dimensions in our society.

Pay-what-you-can: £0-£8

Programmed by the Roma Youth film programming group and Offline with .voice

Three Thousand Numbered Pieces - screening as part of CineRoma 2.0 for Govanhill International Festival & Carnival

Friday 9th August
Doors: 6pm

“«What you call realism is just you exploiting our misery. And what you call absurd is just plain racism», says a male member of an all-Roma theatrical troupe, confronting the white director of a play titled Gypsy Hungarian. To which a female thespian jumps in with, «And you call this «deconstruction.» Do you know what you’re deconstructing? Your own racism. And a deconstructive racist is still a racist.» (Ouch.) In other words, this collaborative work, based on the actors’ real-life experiences (which in today’s Orbán-land includes homelessness, juvenile delinquency, he**in addiction, r**e and all manner of abuse), is a good-faith effort that has clearly gone off the rails. Strangely, something that tends to happen not under (non-collaborative, bad faith) authoritarian regimes but only in the wokest of white liberal spaces. Ay, there’s the rub!” - Lauren Wissot, Modern Times Review
voice .yp

Next up on the CineRoma 2.0 season - CITIZEN MIKO by Robin Kvapil.

Friday 9th August, 12:00
Offline Cinema

Pay-what-you-can

Miko is a truck driver, his father is Romani, and above all he is a man who wants to help those in need. When the Czech government was looking for reasons not to take in a few dozen children from Greek refugee camps after the chemical attacks on Syrian civilians in 2018, Miko took justice into his own hands and, together with the Czechs Helping initiative, prepared facilities for child refugees.

Programmed by Roma youth film programming group in collaboration with .voice - part of Govanhill International Festival & Carnival

Deadline for expressions of interest in The Ground is Not Unchanging workshops - TOMORROW

Part of Govanhill International Festival & Carnival, these workshops will be led by artists Mina Heydari-Waite and Lydia Bielby (Screen Bandita). They will explore alternative approaches to the idea of the archive using participants own archival material (objects, photographs, film, letters or more intangible things like memories, stories, song lyrics, dreams) which will form the basis of a new collaborative, experimental 16mm moving image work.

Apply via Google forms - link in bio

CineRoma 2.0 opens on the 8th of August with the powerful feminist documentary, ‘Carmen, No Fear of Freedom’ by Irene Baqué.

From the Las 600 neighbourhood in the South of Spain, Carmen is leading the first association of feminist Roma Women to fight systemic racism and sexism. Having broken the stereotypes, she will have to deal with the pressure of having become her community’s hope for change.

‘Carmen, No Fear of Freedom’ will be paired with a collaborative film by the Roma Youth Filmmaking Group, led by Meray Diner .voice

Part of Govanhill International Festival & Carnival

WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT

Thursday 8th August, 12 noon - 4pm

Thursday 15th August, 12 noon - 4pm

A two-part workshop led by artists Mina Heydari-Waite and Lydia Bielby (Screen Bandita) that explores alternative approaches to the idea of the archive. Participants are invited to bring their own archival material (object, photographs, film, letters or more intangible things like memories, stories, song lyrics, dreams) which we will discuss and use as the basis to explore ways of creating new 16mm moving image work. - collaboratively archiving the connections and resonances between our collective temporary archive that we have brought together.

Responding to Heydari-Waite’s recent exhibition ‘Farang / فرنگ ‘ at Offline, these workshops will question the idea of the archive as a repository of knowledge that constructs and legitimises a singular ‘history’. Heydari-Waite’s work is guided by Stuart Hall’s notion of ‘the living archive’, an ever-evolving relational entity that holds multiple contested narratives. Her approach resonates with Screen Bandita’s philosophy, in considering archives as vibrant and dynamic entities that should be ‘constantly reinvigorated, reinterpreted, reinvented and debated’. The workshops aim to challenge preconceived ideas of what an archive is and can be, and who holds the authority to shape them.

We would particularly like to encourage participants who have experience or histories of migration, and whose stories may feel absent from conventional narratives on Scotland’s history.

Free to attend.

Lunch will be provided.

Expressions of interest now open - link to application form in LinkTree.

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‘The Ground is Not Unchanging’ is a collaborative project between artist Mina Heydari-Waite and Offline. Activities include film screenings, an exhibition, and experimental archiving workshops.

Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, Glasgow International Festival and Our History Our Stories.

Last chance to catch Mina Heydari-Waite’s stunning film and installation ‘Farang / فرنگ‘ - part of Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art - closing this weekend, Sunday 23rd.

Open daily 10:00-18:00

It has been an absolute privilege to work with Mina on this project which has launched our new exhibition space. Mina has been a collaborator and critical friend to the organisation for several years, making this GI exhibition together has been an incredible opportunity for us to put some of the slow working methodologies we codeveloped into practice. We still have a lot to learn but are grateful for ongoing relationships with artists and our community which are helping shape Offline into a specialist space for making and exhibiting film and artists’ moving image.

Watch this space for more from the umbrella project ‘The Ground Is Not Unchanging’ - coming soon.

📷 .stevenson

The final instalment of ‘The Ground Is Not Unchanging’ comes to the Offline Cinema tomorrow.

The closing titles is ‘the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered’ by Onyeka Igwe:

This is a story of the artist’s grandfather, the story of the ‘land’ and the story of an encounter with Nigeria—retold at a single point in time, in a single place. The artist is trying to tell a truth in as many ways as possible. So ‘the names have changed…’ tells us the same story in four different ways: a folktale of two brothers rendered in the broad, unmodulated strokes of colonial British moving images; a Nollywood TV series, on VHS, based on the first published Igbo novel; oral histories of the family patriarch, passed down through generations; and the diary entries from the artist’s first solo visit to her family’s hometown. Igwe pushes against the materials of the archive—its distortions, fabrications and embellishments—with her own kind of autofictional response. ‘the names have changed…’ throws the ordinary and the everyday within the archive into relief by daring to write and re-write the stories of diasporic African life against the grain of colonial history’s master narratives. (Tendai John Mutambu)

Doors: 7pm

Pay what you can

Book via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dear-f-letter-from-your-far-off-country-the-names-have-changed-tickets-886081673137?aff=erelexpmlt

‘The Ground Is Not Unchanging’ is a curated series of screenings and workshops bookending Mina Heydari-Waite’s solo exhibition for Glasgow International Festival 2024.

Mina Heydari-Waite’s curated programme of screenings ‘The Ground Is Not Unchanging’ continues this Friday with a double bill - ‘Letters from Pandurang’ by Nguyen Trinh Thi (pictured) and ‘Sahnehaye Estekhraj (Scenes of Extraction)’ by Sanaz Sohrabi.

‘Letters from Panduranga’ was developed in response to the Vietnamese government’s plan to build the country’s first nuclear power plants in Ninh Thuân. This is a province once known as Panduranga and a spiritual centre for the ancient matriarchal Cham culture, now an ethnic minority in the country. The Cham indigenous culture originated almost two thousand years ago, and Panduranga was the last of the Champa territories to be annexed in 1832 by the kingdom of Dai Viêt, present-day Vietnam. Nguyễn’s film thinks through the marginalisation and erasure of indigenous history and experience, alongside media censorship of ecological destruction and injustice. Responding to this censorship in the form of letters, she situates the film between the macro of these power structures and the micro ecologies of specific places, details and personal stories.

Doors: 7pm

Pay-what-you-can

Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/letters-from-panduranga-sahnehaye-estekhraj-scenes-of-extraction-tickets-886056046487?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

First up in Mina Heydari-Waite’s curated season of artists’ films is ‘In Vitro’ by Larrissa Sansour.

‘In Vitro’ is a film we have wanted to screen since first seeing it in Venice, 2019, so we were thrilled when this title was selected to open ‘The Ground Is Not Unchanging’.

About the film:

A Palestinian sci-fi set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster. An abandoned nuclear reactor under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. Using heirloom seeds collected in the final days before the disaster, a group of scientists are preparing to replant the soil above.

In the hospital wing of the underground compound, the orchard’s founder, 70-year-old Dunia, is on her deathbed, as 30-year-old Alia, Dunia’s successor, visits her. Alia was born underground and has never seen the town she’s destined to rebuild.The talk between the two scientists soon evolves into an intimate dialogue about memory, exile and nostalgia.

Friday 10th May, doors 7pm

Pay-what-you-can

Book via Eventbrite

Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and Glasgow International Festival

Tickets now live!

‘The Ground Is Not Unchanging’ is a curated series of screenings and workshops bookending Mina Heydari-Waite’s solo exhibition for Glasgow International Festival 2024. Throughout May, Heydari-Waite has programmed a season of screenings of works that resonate with her current research into alternative archival practices seeking pluralised and liberatory understandings of the world we share. We can not think about liberation without thinking about Palestine. We stand in solidarity with a free Palestine and anti-colonial struggles across the globe.

10.05.24
In Vitro by Larrissa Sansour+ A Magical Substance Flows Into Me by Jumana Manna

17.05.24
Letters from Panduranga by Nguyen Trinh Thi + Sahnehaye Estekhraj (Scenes of Extraction) by Sanaz Sohrabi

24.05.24
Dear F by Hannan Jones + Letter From Your Far-Off Country by Suneil Sanzgiri + the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered by Onyeka Igwe

Book via Eventbrite - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/gamis-33795482913

Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and Glasgow International Festival

Edit:

Following discussions with the artists, our wider community, funders and our board of trustees, we have taken the decision to postpone and restructure this event.

We will share details of the new programme in due course.

__________

‘Spite Your Face’ by Rachel Maclean - screening at the GAMIS cinema this Saturday 19:30 - a darkly comic moral tale for a generation that has increasingly fewer role models to set the ethical standard. The film presents a post-truth dystopia where the world is turned on its head, leaving the characters untethered to a sense of right and wrong.

We close our Powell + Pressburger + season with a triple bill; Powell + Pressburger’s ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’, the duo’s epic opera film which makes trademark use of lavish costumes, experimental camera trickery and analogue special effects with works by three artists who use contemporary performance and filmmaking methodologies; ‘Spite Your Face’ by Rachel Maclean and ‘The Making of Pinocchio’ by artists and lovers Ivor MacAskill and Rosana Cade.

16:30 - doors
17:00 - The Tales of Hoffmann
19:15 - intermission
19:30 - Spite Your Face
20:10 - The Making of Pinocchio
21:40 - Rachel Maclean in conversation with Cade & MacAskill
22:15 - event ends

Pay what you can: £0-£12

Screening as part of Cinema Unbound:�The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger, a UK-wide film season supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network.

Edit:

Following discussions with the artists, our wider community, funders and our board of trustees, we have taken the decision to postpone and restructure this event.

We will share details of the new programme in due course.

__________

‘The Making of Pinocchio’, a performance by artists and lovers Cade and MacAskill, filmed as part of an online iteration of Take Me Somewhere festival 2021, will close our ‘Powell + Pressburger +’ season this Saturday.

We are thrilled to also welcome Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill to the cinema for a panel discussion with Rachel Maclean whose film ‘Spite Your Face’ forms the companion film to this triple bill.

Saturday 3rd February

16:30 - doors
17:00 - The Tales of Hoffmann
19:15 - intermission
19:30 - Spite Your Face
20:10 - The Making of Pinocchio
21:40 - Rachel Maclean in conversation with Cade & MacAskill
22:15 - event ends

Part of Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger season supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network.

📸

TONIGHT

Up first in our double bill is an early, rarely screened Powell + Pressburger, ‘Contraband’, 1940 - selected for this programme by the novelist, artist and critic, Huw Lemmey.

His film collaboration with Onyeka Igwe, ‘Ungentle’ will screen directly after with Onyeka in conversation with local artist-researcher, Mina Heydari-Waite.

This Friday, 26th January - doors, 6pm

Pay what you can

Book via Eventbrite, link in bio - last few tickets remaining

Part of Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger season supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network.

What’s up next next at the GAMIS cinema?

Continuing our Cinema Unbound season we are thrilled to welcome Onyeka Igwe to Glasgow to present her short film, ‘Ungentle’, made in collaboration with Huw Lemmey, paired with an early, rarely screened Powell + Pressburger title, ‘Contraband’, selected for this season by Huw Lemmey.

Onyeka will join Mina Heydari-Waite in conversation after the screenings.

This Friday, 26th January - doors, 6pm

Pay what you can

Book via Eventbrite, link in bio

Saturday 3rd February - the last screening in our Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger season.

In this, our final event of the season, we pair Powell + Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann, the duo’s epic psychedelic opera film which makes trademark use of lavish costumes, innovative camera trickery and analogue special effects with works by three artists who use contemporary experimental performance and filmmaking methodologies; Spite Your Face by Rachel Maclean and The Making of Pinocchio by artists and lovers Ivor MacAskill and Rosana Cade

Spite Your Face will be installed in the GAMIS warehouse space throughout Saturday so audiences have a chance to view the film in situ, from 2pm.

16:30 - doors
17:00 - The Tales of Hoffmann
19:15 - intermission
19:30 - Spite Your Face
20:10 - The Making of Pinocchio
21:40 - Rachel Maclean in conversation with Cade & MacAskill
22:15 - event ends

Pay what you can: £0-£12

Book via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-tales-of-hoffmann-rachel-maclean-cade-macaskill-tickets-780357519347?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Screening as part of Cinema Unbound:�The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger, a UK-wide film season supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network.

Top image credit: Tiu Makkonen

This FRIDAY - 19th January

Join us for the second instalment in our Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger season supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network.

We’ve paired contemporary artists’ moving image with Powell + Pressburger classics to ‘trouble’ some of the more controversial aspects of their practice and practices of the time, including depictions of race, gender and sexuality.

In this edition, we’ve paired their epic melodrama, Black Narcissus with short titles by Michelle Williams Gamaker for an event which addresses the racist casting choices made by Powell + Pressburger in 1947 and how Michelle has has used her practice as a method of fictional revenge / fictional healing in her films Thieves and House of Women and throughout her current solo exhibition, ‘Our Mountains are Painted on Glass’, currently on show at Dundee Contemporary Arts. Michelle will be in conversation with the exhibition’s curator, Tiffany Boyle.

Doors: 6pm

Pay what you can

Book via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/powell-pressburger-black-narcissus-michelle-williams-gamaker-tickets-780298191897?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

CEASEFIRE NOW!

We have been watching and learning in dismay as horrifying events have been unfolding in Gaza. Our hearts are broken, we can no longer remain silent.

We believe we are seeing genocide on an industrial level. We fear for the Palestinian people and stand in solidarity with them. We believe in their right to live, to live with dignity and without fear of violence and oppression.

We call for an immediate ceasefire, and and end to the blockade and occupation of Gaza.

We call for immediate release of humanitarian aid and the restoration of power and communications.

We call on governments, lobbyists and policymakers to commit to challenging the actions of Israel.

We call on arts institutions and funding bodies to divest their money from those who profit from arms trading and the apartheid of the Palestinian people.

In solidarity, team GAMIS.

👀 Keep your eyes peeled for our WE BUILT A CINEMA tees and totes hitting the streets this summer.

Shireen was busy last week getting all the .are.wildandkind printed merch rewards out to our fantastic patrons who selected these rewards from our Creative Scotland Crowdfunder

It’s been a couple of weeks since our Crowdfunder campaign closed and we just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated! We were blown away by the support we received from our community.

The final tally came to £12,332!!! Smashing through our original target of £10K. Huge thanks also go out to who match-funded the initial target in real-time with £5K, helping us reach our initial goal more efficiently.

Reaching our stretch target means we’ll be able to buy the all important popcorn machine!!!! 🍿

Image description: small pink and white striped packets of popcorn lit by pink neon lights, on a white top table.

You did it! The fundraiser has surpassed £10K!!!!

We’re overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for all our donors. It’s an incredible endorsement for of our plans to bring weird and wonderful film and artists’ moving image to Govanhill.

There’s one day left to donate so we’ve optimistically stretched the target to £15K - if we reach the stretch target, in addition to a popcorn machine, we’ll be able to upgrade our cinema equipment, helping us make film events more accessible and fun!

We receive every penny donated now so there’s no risk. If you’re a UK tax payer, don’t forget to tick the GIFT AID box. Gift Aid is a tax relief allowing UK charities to reclaim an extra 25% in tax on every eligible donation made by a UK taxpayer.

ONE WEEK TO GO!

It’s all or nothing so we need all the help we can make it over the line! Can you help us reach our £10K target?

Help us buy our own equipment and keep bringing weird, experimental film and artists’ moving image to Govanhill.

Like this fantastic event from X from November 2022. With on the panel, chaired by

Link to pledge in bio.

Image description: a pink glow from an image of neon lights fills the cinema, a panel of artists and local activists sit below the cinema screen, caught in lively discussion.