Recognising the importance of open film archiving and distribution as a form of queer solidarity, QAMERAD and Otherness Archive have launched a project focusing on queer and trans film and communities, titled SHARED CAMERA/DERIE: Queer Memories, Resources, and Transnational Solidarity.”
For those who are not familiar with these two initiatives, QAMERAD is co-founded and co-run by Rizky Rahad, a filmmaker, ethnographer, programmer, and author of the essay collection QUEERS SHOOT BACK!: Essays on Radical Queer Cinema (2023). Rahad’s personal works explore various methods of filmmaking and alternative queer film aesthetics, and QAMERAD acts as a queer film collective that often organises guerilla screenings in Bali, as well as sharing resources.
While Otherness Archive was initiated by Sweatmother, a London-based artist and filmmaker whose personal works often combine performance, documentation, and archival and internet footage to explore and make visible queer lived experiences. Otherness Archive is a visual archive platform that documents queer films and their pioneers. It also aims to challenge the historical censorship of queer, trans, and racial themes that have been an otherness, but deserve equal recognition.
It is on the basis of this shared vision and strong background that QAMERAD and Otherness Archive were able to collaborate.
Digging into Film Archives and Queer Lives through Residencies and Workshops
In SHARED CAMERA/DERIE, QAMERAD and Otherness Archive aim to foster a long-term collaboration by exploring alternative modes of filmmaking and distribution to sustain transnational solidarity, especially within queer film communities.
The name of this collaboration also has a connection to the vision of the project. The phrase ‘CAMERA/DERIE’ is a play on words that combines “camera” and “camaraderie,” or a sense of mutual trust among a group of people who share a common experience or working environment, which is relevant when linked to tied to non-mainstream, collective-based filmmaking initiatives.
Spanning April-September 2024, SHARED CAMERA/DERIE led to a cross-residency programme in Bali and London. These cross-residencies resulted in workshops, programming, and film archiving as key components of collective film practice.
Sweatmother Hosted a Workshop on Film Archives as Art and Action
In the initial phase of the project, which ran in May 2024, Sweatmother first spent two weeks in Bali and conducted three workshop programmes on critical topics.
In the first session of the workshop, Living Archives, Sweatmother explored the use of archives as an art form, as well as an act of resistance, by queer and trans+ communities.
Then in the second session, Trans Feminism in the Digital Age, Sweatmother outlined ways to run an inclusive and sustainable queer collective space, and how to practice the idea of trans feminism in a world of surveillance, censorship and disregard for trans communities and ideas.
Closing the series with the third session, Collective Curations with Otherness Archive, Sweatmother introduced his initiative, Otherness Archive, as an archival resource for queer and trans+ communities on a global scale. The workshop culminated in a film screening.
Dozens of participants attended the programme, with almost half of the participants identified as trans or non-binary. To ensure a more inclusive and accessible event, the programme also provided ramps for wheelchair users and sign language interpreters in Indonesian and English.
“I learned so much beyond my Western education and perspectives while at my residency in Indonesia,” said Sweatmother. “QAMERAD offered insight into their lived experiences, culture and community that no book or form of tourism could ever teach me.”
