On Recreation (working title)

In their first feature film project On Recreation (working title) The Post Film Collective explores a polyphonic cinema practice while taking its cue from the poem Recreation by Audre Lorde. In her poem, Lorde explores a double binding of interrelating activities - ‘it is easier to work / after our bodies / meet’ - that led to what she claimed was ‘recreation’, with its connotations of play, reciprocity, care, repetition, and regeneration. 

On Recreation (working title) explores a cinema practice that documents its own making and, as such, is about finding joy and presence, as an intimate and political project. For The Post Film Collective, finding joy is not a luxury or a surplus, but rather a deep need and essential infrastructure, strongly connected to the struggle for place-making. 

The film is composed of a kaleidoscope of perspectives that are collectively forged by seven directors, filmmakers, writers, actors, animators, and editors. In this collective artistic search, nothing can be taken for granted: everything is questioned and reformulated in conditional, situated terms via scores, workshops, new modes of dialoguing, and so on. Here, it’s essential for the collective that the film methods remain inclusive at all times, so that everyone can participate according to their own personal desires, objectives, and concerns. As one member of the collective states, "Our stories don't sound like stories to us; they just sound like real life." Hence, this film is an auto-ethnography tailored to a collective understanding of film at the intersection of storytelling and care.

In a Ciné Assembly format that practices cinema as a form of gathering and communal assembly, The Post Film Collective will share previews of On Recreation (working title) and discuss its work process.

Biographies

• ​​Since 2018, The Post Collective has been an autonomous platform of co-creation, co-learning, and cultural activism created by and for refugees, asylum seekers, sans-papiers, and accomplices. It introduces a range of artistic, cultural, and employment opportunities and provides a commoning environment for its members, regardless of their legal status. The collective aims to develop creative alternatives beyond the dominant systems of control and exclusion they are facing. This entails facilitating a position in which one does not struggle to be assimilated but instead critically rethinks and re-conceptualizes a future together as a community.The Post Collective develops relationships of kinship, solidarity, and co-elaboration with other artists and institutions in Belgium and from various diasporas.

• The Post Film Collective, born in 2020 upon the invitation of Robin Vanbesien, elaborates on the work and experiences of The Post Collective in the realm of cinema. The Post Film Collective are Mahammed Alimu, Marcus Bergner, Hooman Jalidi, Sawsan Maher, Mirra Markhaeva, Robin Vanbesien, and Elli Vassalou.