The aim of Rewend – Wandering Cinema is to promote and distribute the cinematographic works produced by the Rojava Film Commune in Italy, Spain and France. To distribute and promote their film production and other films produced in northeast Syria, the Cinema Commune will be supported by OVNI (Barcelona) and Streamthings (through its platform Streeen.org). Rewend won the Goteborg Fund in 2022.
OVNI Observatory and Streamthings have already been involved in the distribution and promotion of Kurdish cinema, both through the online screening of the Rojava Film Festival and the Purple Meridians (purplemeridians.org) project, sponsored by Eurimage in 2021.
Rewend aims to increase distribution opportunities for Kurdish cinema in two ways: a travelling festival in the three countries (Italy, Spain and France) that will also establish a network of cinemas and venues for future projects, and the creation of a streaming programme.
THE ROJAVA FILM COMMUNE
The Rojava Film Commune, Komîna fîlm a Rojava is a collective of filmmakers founded in 2015, based in the autonomous region of Rojava in the Federation of Northern and Eastern Syria. The commune is actively working in the region to rebuild and reorganise the infrastructures of filmmaking and film education.
The Rojava Film Commune was established with the aim to stimulate local film culture by organising film screenings, facilitating discussions about the role of film within society, producing new films, and establishing the Film Academy. Following the 1960 fire in Rojava’s only cinema, in the city of Amude, which saw the death of 298 children trapped inside, the Commune aims to reclaim cinema and film as a central space of reimagining society, democratising and revolutionising imagination itself.
The Commune has educated a new generation of Rojava filmmakers, organized screenings in cities and villages and produced films. It works to represent the values and ideals of the Rojava Revolution, but also to mediate and depict the daily struggles in the Syrian civil war and Rojava’s collective attempt to build a new society.
