The In-Visible Film Festival

is organised for the second time in Azerbaijan

Salaam Cinema is hosting the In-Visible Film Festival for the second time. The first time it was organised in 2019, in collaboration with the Embassy of the Netherlands, International Queer & Migrant Film Festival, Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance, Minority Azerbaijan and other partners. Salaam Cinema is giving centre stage to gender topics. The festival is offering a wide program dedicated to equality, inclusion and celebrating diversity.

Colleague of ours Vahid Aliyev met with Salaam Cinema to learn more about the festival.

Vahid Aliyev: What is the main purpose of the festival and what inspired you to create it?

Salaam Cinema: The overall goal of the In-Visible Film Festival is to increase the participation and visibility of women and LGBTQI + in the arts. It was Salaam's practice that encouraged us to do something about it. While preparing for other events of the previous Salaam Cinema Baku, we observed that a single gender, a single social class, a single past - in general, a single point of view - is hegemonic in arts. When we tried to collaborate with queers and women, as well as people with different social backgrounds, we saw that there were very few such artists who were self-sufficient. This inaccessibility creates very absurd images in the artworks. The projection of women and queers in art is always from the lens of "others," and that curved mirror lens never portrays an autonomous woman or queer.

V. A: The festival is being held for the second time. How has the festival developed over the years?

S.C: When it was first held in 2019, the In-Visible Film Festival was more in a pilot format and was not planned to take place every year as an ongoing one. At the same time, the first festival was more accessible to the local community. However, in its second year, the festival has developed a more sustainable and long-term impact-focused system. What happened in the country and in the world, of course, created many difficulties. But we reacted to the events as quickly as possible and modified the festival. As a result, for the first time, before Covid-19 entered our lives, a very different program was created. The program initially included four days of offline film screenings, exhibitions, training and concerts, as in the first year of the festival. Due to the pandemic, we decided to organize the festival online this time. This took the festival out of the local area and made it more accessible to various communities in Baku, Ganja, Lankaran, Sumgayit, as well as to the Azerbaijani community in Georgia. Also allowed us to increase the number of training, film screenings, concerts, lectures by continuing the festival for 3 months. The artworks created by the participants as a result of the training and mentoring programs will be shown at the next In-Visible Film Festival. In addition, we are already working with more local partners, various initiative groups and individuals.

V.A: How do you feel that the festival can gather diverse audiences?

S.C: The events within the festival are mostly for queers and women. However, we believe that the films to be shown will attract the attention of very different groups. The quality of the films is high in terms of art. At the same time, given the theme, the films will be of interest not only to those who want to watch quality films, but also to activists.

V.A: How do you see the development of the festival in the next few years, and what are your hopes and plans for the future?

S.C: As we mentioned earlier, we want to continue the festival in a more sustainable way, increasing the number of people and organisations we work with each year, as well as expanding the community. At the same time, we plan to focus more on educational programs. Every year, the participants of the previous festival's training are expected to present their work and thus support the festival itself. Our hope is to build an art, a society and a world without barriers, restrictions and "impossible".

Don't forget to follow Salaam Cinema's Facebook and Instagram accounts for up-to-date information about the festival.