WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #18-26 - Cinema as a Space of Freedom. Moments of Collective Sharing (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Questioning cinema today-questioning a supposed or otherwise specific cinematic dimension, language, content, enjoyment, etc., in the age of artificial intelligence-also means rethinking filmmaking, and experiencing cinema as a space of freedom. Cinema, since its origins, has been inconceivable outside of the technology that makes it possible and the economic industry that makes it accessible and visible. Cinema, like photography from which it derives, is the first art form that cannot exist without the machine that creates it. It is essentially ahistorical to label "real cinema" that which is tied to a specific

technical medium, and "non-cinema" audiovisual content tied to another medium. Rossellini understood this when he deemed the debate over whether his television films could be considered "real" cinema pointless. The technical quality of the medium itself has no bearing on the quality of the film product: cinematic masterpieces have been shot with hand-cranked cameras and lenses that would be utterly ridiculous by today's standards, or in Super 8, or with MiniDV camcorders. The choice of format can essentially be traced back to economic reasons, creative and production freedom, or even aesthetic ones, as those who still shoot on film do today. We are no longer limited to the 35mm format alone.
Today, in the eternal digital age, where any smartphone can make films at no cost, you can simultaneously dust off your old VHS camcorder or Super 8 or use your twenty-year-old cell phone. You can even create entirely synthetic cinema using artificial intelligence, completely bypassing the camera, be it a camera obscura, still camera, video camera, or any other type of video camera. The extent to which the technical medium influences the content is an ongoing debate that dates back to the time of the Lumière brothers. Certainly, the more a film requires a massive economic and production apparatus, the more the scope for freedom regarding content is reduced. The dependence on funding is much more influential than the technical means. Thinking of cinema as an instrument of freedom, and therefore of a struggle for freedom, is still possible today only by thinking critically of the production apparatus that conditions it. Grifi, when he used the first rudimentary magnetic tape cameras to shoot Anna, and forgoing film, declared that his was a fundamentally political choice. Continuing to focus on the medium causes us to lose sight of the fundamental issue of content, meaning, and purpose in making cinema, or in general, art that isn't merely narcissistic or blatantly focused on making money; therefore, essentially reactionary, with the end result of restricting spaces of freedom rather than expanding them. Any technical means can be used to make cinema, but whatever medium is used, it is necessary not to submit to it uncritically but to reappropriate it actively and consciously, also for the purpose of overturning the ideological perspective of the system that produced a particular medium. This was true for film and is even more true today for artificial intelligence.
Conceiving cinema as an act of freedom also means experiencing cinema as a collective sharing. Enjoyment in a space that becomes one of freedom, where one cannot ignore personal exchange, physically being there, with bodies and minds; this requires active involvement, not being passively consuming spectators. The very act of leaving home to meet (and engage with) other people is a healthy exercise for body and spirit, freeing us from the comforting/disheartening logic of solipsistic, constipated screens that numb any critical sense. At the Bakunin anarchist club in Garbatella, for over two years, the Wednesday Cineforum has been a space for sharing and discussion. Here, in addition to the collective viewing of unconventional films that seek to spark a discussion about cinema and society, we can simply spend time with others, participate, and above all, have fun.
Here we eat and drink, before, during, and after each screening; but, above all, we nourish and nourish our imagination.
Here, the door is always open to those who are curious, visionary, and non-authoritarian and want to engage with our thinking, the active thinking of another possible world.

We take back the little that is taken from us every day by the logic of the market, by the repression of those who break the imposed rules, and by the forced attempt at social exclusion, which seeks to make us conform to the disturbing logic of power and those mechanisms that want us to be automatons, inert, subscribers to platforms, compliant with the system, with the aim of isolating our minds, our bodies, our ideas, our dreams and above all with the desire to keep us divided and distant.
Distant from each other.
But we meet and we are ready for conflict.
And time here is not and must not be money. Never.

Marco & Lorenzo

https://umanitanova.org/cinema-spazio-di-liberta-momenti-di-condivisione-collettiva/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca