Rage Against the Screen! Part 2 ‘don’t dream it - be it’
part 2: don’t dream it - be it: conversations with mix nyc, the invisible women collective, and basement films
Written by Jess Sweetman
In part 1 I explored the history of film cooperatives in the avant garde cinema space, But what about contemporary film cooperatives? How do things work in the digital age when it’s easier than ever to make films but harder to find an audience?
I reached out to three collectives who are working in the UK, USA, and Germany, to chat more about the importance of archiving existing works, who they seek to represent, and why experimental forms of film are still important.
MIX NYC is the non-profit organisation that grew from the NYC Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival, which, according Jac Renee Bruneau, Head of Programming, is: “dedicated to platforming, promoting, and supporting LGBTQIA2S+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, 2-spirit persons) experimental filmmakers and artists. Through our annual MIX FEST and year-round programming, we are committed to showing films that challenge conventional filmmaking practices, test bold ideas, and offer insight into the wide, evolving array of queer experience.”
Rachel Pronger - The Invisible Women Collective
The Invisible Women Collective, based in Scotland, the UK, and Germany, has existed for eight years, is run by three women, and, according to founder member Rachel Pronger: “is an archive activist (trans-inclusionary) feminist film collective. We screen work made by women, non-binary and otherwise marginalised gendered filmmakers from the archive.” Their work includes a tour of screenings of Mexican Melodramas, a curatorial retreat co-hosted with (The TAPE Collective), and a programme of coming-of-age films drawing on Bradford’s diasporic history.
Rachel corrects me when I ask about a film archive “unearthing” lost movies, and highlights the collective’s ties to and reliance upon past work by others:
“The work that we screen isn't necessarily "unearthed" because we are always building on the work other curators, artists and critics have done before us - by writing about these films, mentioning them at screenings etc. Also the living filmmakers whose work we screen have often been continuing their own work and creative practice even if their films are not well known, so they don't necessarily feel ‘buried.’”
One collective who do seem to lean more toward “unearthing” lost content are the Alberqueque-based Basement Films, who are a non-profit, volunteer run organisation that supports experimental, independent, and under-represented forms of film and videomaking. They describe themselves as a micro-cinema, who run an archive, a film festival, plus workshops for filmmakers and artist residencies.
Bryan Konefsky - Basement Films
According to Bryan Konefsky, the organisational president: “Our mission - through our various activities - has been to inspire a new generation of moving image activists to recognise the value of their media voices, to make movies in ways we never imagined and to participate in shaping future trends in cultural representation.”
Part of their remit is collecting the Basement Films Archive, which, according to their website, consists of: “6,000 16mm films and hundreds of Super8 and 8mm films and other formats. In this collection are a wide variety of films ranging from the 1940s through the 1980s: educational films, short films, documentary films, feature films, home movies, religious films, raw footage, etc.”
serving the under-served
Much like their predecessors, one throughline from all of the filmmaker collectives and co-ops I have talked to is representation.
For Konefsky and Basement Films, inviting artists to peruse and rejuvenate titles from their archive allows a contemporary and critical eye on works from the past:
The Basement Films archive
“The histories represented are often those of underserved and marginalised communities. To that end, especially the classroom films depict these communities from the perspective of the colonisers. That is, these depictions are often uncomfortably racist. However, these representations are important to preserve as reminders that these depictions are how ‘we’ saw the world at particular moments in history.”
Basement Films draw from their archive to create artist residencies. They’ve held 10 so far, inviting filmmakers to explore and use the footage: “Most artists make found footage films, some present a film in its original form and talk about how it might have been received when it was made and how it might be received by audiences today.”
While MIX NYC continues to explore works by LGBTQIA2S+ filmmakers, their remit has evolved along with the issues facing their community. Bruneau explains that MIX’s upcoming film festival includes exploration of the climate crisis, technological realities, the commodification of attention, and surveillance capitalism, alongside the exploration of the lives of marginalised communities.
Meanwhile, Invisible Women view themselves explicitly as “archive activists,” because, according to Pronger:
“We want to highlight that what we are doing is a political act, because archives have always been a site of political control – what we choose to archive, how accessible archives are, who has power over the collections – these are all very relevant political questions.”
why the commitment to experimental forms?
The proliferation of narrative, naturalistic cinema seems to have reached a point where the general public can almost be sniffy about films that don’t follow this path. Cliches of experimental cinema being inaccessible, pretentious, and meaningless echo throughout the discourse around the term “arthouse” itself. So why are filmmaker collectives still rallying against conventional methods of storytelling and filmmaking?
The answer, again, is deeply political. For MIX NYC, according to Bruneau, experimental forms are often the strongest way to represent the queer experience:
“Humans are hard-coded to identify and create narratives—but there is so much about the human experience, and the queer experience, that doesn’t fall neatly into mainstream story structures.”
Pronger and Invisible Women also aim to expand the definition of what is acceptable in film for a political aim: “We work with very broad definitions, which is a conscious challenge to patriarchal, hierarchal film theory which centres one auteur and privileges certain genres over others.”
And Basement Films dedicates itself to exploring different ideas about what film can be. According to their website: “Basement Films believes that it is important for our organisation to insert itself into this state-wide conversation and expand the dialogue beyond ‘Hollywood models’ to include diverse and underrepresented media histories and practices.”
For all three organisations, the aim is more than just to offer a focus on experimental forms of film, they aim to reach audiences beyond the gallery or the indie cinema.
beyond arthouse
For MIX this means creating a welcoming space for newcomers: “We are honoured to engage a community of viewers who are both versed and not versed in experimental film traditions. All that’s really required is that you’re interested in having a cinema experience, and are curious to see what happens when familiar modalities are deprioritised.”
What’s more, Bruneau sees an inherent value in exploring non-traditional film types with a broader audience: “I think what people often realise is that while experimental work may not follow conventional narrative structures, there is always an arc of some kind that takes shape out of the filmmaker’s concept for the work and their intentions for the viewing experience.”
For Invisible Women, reaching a broader audience is part of the point: “We want to capture the sense that what we are doing is active and political, and specifically not just confined to academic or specialist circles. What we are trying to do here is open up archives to the public and wider audiences beyond those who might think they are interested in historical film already.”
And thematically, by exploring archive films, Pronger says that patterns emerge:
“It is sort of gobsmacking that you can watch a film from 100 years ago and see a direct connection to the present day, and really feel these filmmakers are speaking to you now…Researching this field and watching these films has made me feel part of a vast intergenerational sisterhood of artist archivists and that can be really reassuring when you’re feeling depressed by the state of the contemporary industry.”
and why the collective?
In terms of functioning as a collective, Pronger admits that working as a tiny collective of just three people gives her a different experience than perhaps a larger organisation would have, but as for the benefits:
The Invisible Women Collective
“Working as a collective means that we are greater than the sum of our parts, and that gives us a stronger bargaining position with arts orgs, archives and funders than we would ever have alone. It also means we operate as a kind of hive mind, with a big pool of knowledge between us that we can tap into for projects – so the ideas we have collectively are unique, and much bigger and better than ideas we could ever have alone.”
Meanwhile Basement Films acts as a larger collective, and Konefsky sees human conflict as part of the deal around working with humans:
“Working as a collective brings with it all the messiness that SHOULD come with
something that calls itself a democracy… That is, in our situation, everyone’s voice is important, listened to and considered. Sometimes the cacophony of voices can be complicated to navigate, but ultimately I think the various projects that Basement Films supports (EIC is probably our most popular and well known actiity) are more thoughtful, well researched and better crafted as a result of all that ‘messy’ input.”
in the end, all we have is each other
I could continue this article forever, because I’ve barely even touched upon the rich history of filmmaking collectives and what they mean to our collective unconscious. I am heartbroken I didn’t get into South American, Indian, or African groups and their work. But there are only so many hours a day (and this is an industry blog, not a publishing house!)
So I will leave you, hopefully, with the knowledge that there are alternatives to Hollywood and the rest of the mainstream out there. There are organisations banding together to provide something different - although I’m painfully aware that I’m writing this from Berlin, a city where, because of funding priorities and cultural ties, arthouse is definitely far more accessible than any of the cities I’ve lived in in the UK or USA (although cultural funding is under threat right now.)
If you’ve made it this far with me, there’s a chance you’re curious about this already, in which case I say you should follow the groups who took the time to share their thoughts and feelings with me in this article, or find your local film collective and gift them some of your valuable attention.
what’s next in the world of experimental film?
Maybe something to look forward to in 2026? At the Cannes Film Festival, a group of Danish filmmakers unveiled the Dogma 25 statement of intention. Their first films should arrive in 2026: https://dogma25.dk/
For any fans of homegrown weirdo cinema, this should bring a smile:
“Our stated purpose is to preserve the originality of cinema and the opportunity to create film on its own terms.”
I, for one, am excited to see what emerges next from Denmark, the UK, USA, Germany, and everywhere else.
