Decolonising through co-curation? Women creators of the future, Festival Films Femmes Afrique and Leeds International Film Festival
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Date
45707
Authors
Johnson, Rachel
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Film and Screen Media, University College Cork
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Abstract
Amidst calls from Decolonise and Black Lives Matter movements, several film festivals are engaged in the beginnings of a “reorientation,” a shift in their understandings of, and relationships to, colonial power structures. Considering decoloniality as a plural process rather than a singular endpoint, this article examines a recent example of such reorientation: Women Creators of the Future is a programme of films made by women of African heritage, co-curated by Festival Films Femmes Afrique (Senegal) and Leeds International Film Festival (UK). Taking its inspiration from a previous Films Femmes Afrique programme of the same name, this initiative constitutes a meeting of festival “worlds” that tells us much about burgeoning processes of decolonisation in cultural organisations. Combining fieldwork with interviews and self-reflexive analysis, I trace the complex relationships between curation, funding, placemaking and labour that underpinned the collaboration. I argue that this meeting of two contrasting festivals illuminates emerging practices of decolonising through co-curation, yet also invites us to reflect on the need for practices that more fully address both epistemic and economic injustice.
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Keywords
Film festivals , Decolonisation , Feminism , African cinema , Curation
Citation
Johnson, R. (2025) 'Decolonising through co-curation? Women creators of the future, Festival Films Femmes Afrique and Leeds International Film Festival', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 28, pp. 11–33. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.28.01