Programme “Wewe”
« ARCHIVING BY OTHER MEANS: An Ethical Deconstruction of Filipa César’s Spell Reel»
Filipa César . Katy Stewart . Ana Temudo
Conway Hall, London, United Kingdom | 03.01.2024
This Spring the CERA PROJECT is partnering with Conway Hall to screen Filipa César’s award-winning documentary Spell Reel (2017).
to watch the trailer click here
In partnership with Conway Hall, the CERA PROJECT will screen Filipa César’s Spell Reel followed by a conversation with researchers and writers Katy Stewart and Ana Temudo.
Winner of a José Saramago Foundation at the Doclisboa International Film Festival, and screened at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival, Spell Reel transports us to Guinea-Bissau through a post-colonial lens to revisit and reconstruct the revolutions of the country’s War of Independence (1963–1974) and engage with its societal legacy today. Adopting an experimental, multifaceted and self-referential approach in its visuals and interrogation of what it means to archive, César’s film documents the intricate process of restoring film footage captured by revolutionary figures of Guinea Bissau’s fight for independence by the Arsenal Institute of Film and Video Art of Berlin.
Spell Reel is a film documentary that delves into the intricate dynamics between the archivist and the archive itself. This thought-provoking film explores the conservation of cultural and historical artefacts and raises crucial questions about their future archival processes. It prompts us to reflect on the persistence of postcolonial strategies of exploitation in contemporary Guinea-Bissau
The film’s examination of archiving non-western histories serves as a point of departure for what promises to be an insightful and critical panel discussion. Following the screening of the film, Katy Stewart and Ana Temudo will engage in a thoughtful conversation that delves into the ethical dimensions brought forth by César’s film.
Undoubtedly a valuable opportunity for audiences to also actively participate and contribute to the discussion of this complex and multifaceted issue, with their perspectives and experiences.
Image credits: Filipa César, Spell Reel still (2017)
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Title: "ARCHIVING BY OTHER MEANS: An Ethical Deconstruction of Filipa César’s Spell Reel"
Artist/Filmmaker: Filipa César
Speakers: Katy Stewart, Ana Temudo
Date/Time: 03/01/2024, 6 PM
Venue: Conway Hall, London, UK
Partners/Co-organizers: Conway Hall
Funding: DGArtes -
Age Recommendation: 16+
Price: Standard £15 • Concessions £12 (tickets here)
Address: Brockway Room, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL
Access Information: Due to the age and Grade Il listing of the building, there is no lift access to rooms above the ground floor. All the ground-floor rooms are fully accessible by wheelchair. Main Hall (street access, step-free), Brockway Room (street access, step-free), Bertrand Russell Room (street access, shallow ramp), Hive Cafe (street access, step-free), There is also an accessible toilet on the ground floor opposite the Brockway Room.
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Filipa César is an artist and filmmaker, living in Berlin. She is interested in the porous boundaries between the moving image and its reception, the fictional dimensions of the documentary and the economies, politics and poetics inherent to cinema praxis. Her work also uses media as a means to expose counter-narratives of resistance to historicism. Since 2011, César has been looking into the origins of cinema in Guinea-Bissau, its imaginaries and potencies, developing that research into the collective project Luta ca caba inda. She was a participant in the research projects Living Archive (2011-13) and Visionary Archive (2013-15) both organised by the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin. Selected Film Festivals include Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, 2013-16; Curtas Vila do Conde, 2012-2015; Forum Expanded – Berlinale, 2013-2016; Indie Lisboa, 2010 and 2016; DocLisboa, 2011, IFFR, Rotterdam, 2010, 2013 and 2015, as well as selected exhibitions and screenings: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2011-2015; Kunstwerke, Berlin, 2013; Futura, Prague 2015; Tensta Konsthall, 2015. Selected exhibitions and screenings include: the 8th Istanbul Biennial, 2003; Tate Modern, London, 2007; SFMOMA, 2009; 29th São Paulo Biennial, 2010; HKW Berlin, 2011-2015; Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2012; Kunstwerke, Berlin, 2013; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin 2014-15, Futura, Prague 2015; Mumok, Vienna, 2016
Learn more about the artist at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation > Click Here
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Katy Stewart is a researcher specialising in Lusophone and Francophone African film. Her research interests include the ethics and politics of film archiving, intermediality, and cinematic engagement of the body and senses. Recent publications include works on memory in Angolan cinema, and gender and violence in Iberian and Latin American cinema.
Ana Temudo has collaborated in several museum research-based projects that promote interdisciplinarity among the humanities, arts and social sciences, including the Pitt Rivers Museum. Her doctoral thesis “Representational Politics of Guinean Heritage in Portuguese Museums in the Transition from Colonial to Postcolonial Period: Histories, Transits and Discourses” is funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).
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Conway Hall is a London-based organisation owned by the charity Conway Hall Ethical Society, which first opened in 1929. Today, Conway Hall continues to welcome numerous notable figures, progressive groups and major gatherings, while working to curate, support and facilitate people and ideas that make ethics matter in the world.
Click here for their collection
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Please click here to access the Press Release and Images