Apart from running smaller events, every year or so we also organise large scale film festivals that platform emerging thinkers and makers, as well as expand and open up to discipline of visual anthropology to non-academic audiences.

Our academic background has taught us that applying visual anthropology theory to festival programming, production and facilitation has potential for creating radical spaces where horizontal multisided dialogue and learning are possible. Our festivals are not just showcases of passively admired works, but sets of situations where the audience is presented with pressing questions through accessible creative means, and gets invited to connect critical concepts to lived experience and social justice work in practical ways.

Many of the people we work with have limited access to the arts sector; the festival, therefore, acts as an entry point where they can grow skills, , confidence and networks by presenting their work to the public. This grassroot ethos is at the core all of our events, a nurturing of experience that extends to the organisation of the event itself. Not only are our events a place for filmmakers and artists to gain experience, hold discussion and receive feedback, but every stage of the production process makes space for early career organisers, programmers, writers, photographers, videographers (and more) to get involved and contribute to critical artistic conversations.

Scroll down to explore the KONTEKST Film Festivals that we’ve organised so far: