Moving screenings to reweave the link between the theatres and their spectators
Itinerant projections on city walls, in the neighbourhood around a cinema, to experience again the happiness of shared projection, without any fear of health, thanks to the outside and the easy respect of social distancing. The film is also an opportunity for the audience to experience the joy of shared projection, without any fear of health, thanks to the outside and the easy respect of social distancing.
During the confinement period of March-April-May 2020, the cinemas, like all cultural structures welcoming the public, had to close, with no precise reopening date planned. In addition to the enormous loss of revenue and the difficulty of building future programming due to the film bottleneck, a more fundamental question arises, and it has already been widely commented on: Will the spectators’ desire for images be intact in the future, due to the anchoring of new habits with the platforms? Won’t there also be, for many months to come, a simple health fear in frequenting public places, now potentially dangerous. The dimension of the pleasure of sharing, even with strangers, which brings an experience of unequalled power to the cinema, is being attacked in its most intimate foundations.
Reconstructing desire
Of course, the spectators will one day find the desire to go to the cinema and the pleasure of sharing films, as Richard Patry (president of the Fédération nationale des cinémas français) puts it so well. But it seems essential to me to work to help rebuild this desire. During the confinement the initiatives of remote collective screenings (La 25è heure), open-air screenings (Cinéma La Clef, Paris), drive-in initiatives (project in Cabourg for the summer of 2020) were already very relevant and successful.
Reestablishing links
Here is a complementary proposal, which has proved its worth over the last ten years to weave strong links around the shared pleasure of the image: travelling projection. The idea is, around a cinema or a media library, to build a programme of professional or amateur short films, film excerpts or trailers, which will be projected on the walls of the neighbourhood, at night. The public lives during these screenings an exceptional experience, one rediscovers the magic of projection, which is fascinating, and the films give everyday places a totally unexpected dimension. So, in addition to the great pleasure of a projection, of a unique shared experience, it also produces a profound reinvestment in one’s living space and circulation (as street theatre does).
These itinerant projections can be simple proposals from the theatre to its public, during the closing period, very playful and inscribing beautiful and original cinema experiences. They can also be proposals for workshops: it is then a group of spectators that builds the projection and animates it. The involvement is thus even stronger. We have tested this system with cinemas on several occasions with success (Aubervilliers, La Courneuve, Martigues, Valence, Montbéliard, Rennes, Saint-Nazaire...).
Mediation, an essential tool
Mediation is what will make all the difference: it is not, in itself, projecting an image on a wall that makes the experience extraordinary, it is the choice of film, the choice of place in relation to this film, the meaning of this encounter, the words that are given to the spectators before and after the screening, the way the neighbourhood has been invested, the way the screening has been prepared in relation to the inhabitants, the rehearsal time, especially technical, the good management of social distancing, etc. Whether in the form of a workshop or a single projection, it is from the attention with which the travelling projection is prepared that a strong and constructive experience for the audience will result.
The technology
The technical tool used is the “pico-projector” (portable video-projector) associated with a portable autonomous loudspeaker for sound. There are a multitude of models of pico-projectors, only some of them are adapted to this use (power, ergonomics, autonomy, etc.).
Examples
In the Moving screenings section of this site, you will find concrete and inspiring examples of how to implement this concept.
What is culture for? Are we going to return to cultural places as much as before and for what reasons? Should we rethink cultural proposals to adapt them? But to adapt them to what and how? These are fundamental questions that are posed today and tomorrow to the actors of the cultural field (as well as many other fields). Since the first containment related to the Covid-19 epidemic in March 2020 and during the following two years, many initiatives and remote alternatives have been invented. The cultural practice after Covid-19 is already and will continue to be quite different from the one before. It seems important to me to make innovative proposals to the public, that is to say, adapted, in their form and content, to a new reality.
Culture is a bonding factor, it is the essence of social cohesion, and it has even been proven that it is also an important component of health. Culture is a common good that we share and that builds us. The living culture after the Covid-19 crisis (confinements and other authoritarian legislative incoherence, restrictions of freedom, discriminations, fear of the other, mass manipulation, submission to authority...) will have to be more inclusive, less overhanging, more inventive, more agile, more cooperative, the participation and the place of the people being again in the center of the stakes, and this in the greatest artistic and democratic requirement.
You will find here concrete proposals for cultural actions that are antifragile to crises, often around audiovisual and digital, experimental or already proven, as well as tools for reflection for the “updating” of cultural policies.
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Balance and supports
A method for the sustainability of projects.
Based on the way the human body balances itself, for a sustainable approach to project management.Observation of nature is often very good (…) -
Cinema workshop for absent children in Gonesse
Example of a proposal for antifragile artistic and cultural education.
A proposal for a video production workshop for teenagers in a movie theatre, without initial registration, which was led, through a antifragility (…) -
Build antifragility for cultural projects
Methodological proposal.
What methodology should be adopted to build cultural projects that have the capacity to tame uncertainty and thus become more deeply rooted in (…) -
The café of images
Innovative film distribution proposal.
Project for innovative post-confinement film distribution via QR Codes stuck on coffee tables. Project for innovative post-confinement film (…) -
Towards the cultural experience
Essay, by Emmanuel Vergès
In the construction of cultural proposals, focus attention on the lived and shared experience. Short essay on the philosophy of action and the (…) -
Pedagogical use of the “By my window” platform
Cooperative cultural activity for educational purposes.
Exploit the video platform “By my window” in the pedagogical field during and after lockdown: reweave links and learning through shared (…) -
Moving screenings to reweave the link between the theatres and their spectators
Post-confinement cultural action project.
Itinerant projections on city walls, in the neighbourhood around a cinema, to experience again the happiness of shared projection, without any (…) -
“Distances”: a look at a new situation (ocim)
Resources
The Ocim (Observation Cooperation Museum Information) proposes the sharing of reflections of professionals from the museum world to invent the (…) -
Tutorials for doing video activities with your children
Podcast by Benoît Labourdette (1’37s, 2020).
Very simple tutorial (1 minute 30) to conduct two creative audiovisual activities with your children.During the confinement period in (…) -
Tutorials for making sequence-shot films
Podcast by Benoît Labourdette (17’30s, 2020).
Complete pedagogical method for making three types of films in sequence shot: collective film, animated film, memory at the window.During the (…)
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ALCA and FRAC Aquitaine: Encountering audiences and a neighbourhood: co-constructing and experimenting an itinerant screening
Documentary on training, directed by Théo Rulin (3’18s, 2020).
Professional training through the concrete implementation of a cultural action rooted in the challenges of a territory, over two days (February (…) -
Dilapidation of resources in supply logic For a democratic revolution of cultural practices.
Faced with the crisis in the cultural sector, it is urgent to shift from a top-down supply logic to a culture of connection and listening, (…) -
Towards the cultural experience Essay, by Emmanuel Vergès
In the construction of cultural proposals, focus attention on the lived and shared experience. Short essay on the philosophy of action and the (…) -
John Dewey : an inspirer of cultural rights? Sharing my interest in an inspiring personality.
The notion of “cultural rights” is increasingly present in the debates within the cultural sector. They are seen by many as being at the heart of (…) -
The Périfééries project’s heritage council of influence Facilitating collective intelligence in a short space of time.
As part of Saint-Denis’s bid to become European Capital of Culture 2028, I led a collective intelligence session to collect proposals on the (…)
