Collective films

As human and creative endeavours, collective films are the outcome of group video workshops where each person puts their own resources and knowledge into a shared production.

Video workshops enable groups to make and distribute a film through an approach based on creation, technical training and a critical thinking.

Since its beginnings in the mid-1970s with the creation of the Vidéobus, the Centre Vidéo de Bruxelles (CVB) has always paid particular attention to giving a voice to the inhabitants of Brussels, to citizens and to all those who society chooses to ignore. This has given rise to one-off or permanent collective video workshops, where the watchwords are process and purpose. Today, we call these productions ‘collective films’ to underline the collective nature of the work.

In our workshops we like to alternate between the different phases of discussion and creation, writing, equipment handling and technical approach, analysis and reflection. The workshop thus becomes a space for dialogue, exchanges and encounters. Every person involved has a right to be there, regardless of their knowledge, ability and skills. It is a laboratory of sorts, where each person brings their resources and know-how, and individual, historical, social and cultural experiences are free to express themselves.

Through imagination transformed into images and the construction of a well-argued point of view, a collective creation process is ideal for analysing and highlighting a broad scope of daily realities, with an approach that is critical, social and political, but also fun and poetic.

Collective workshops are needed, more than ever, to put the logic at work in society into perspective and to fight against social determinism, exclusion, discrimination, the excesses of a capitalist economy – particularly their effect on the climate and social justice – etc.

The aim is to raise awareness about the realities that society chooses to ignore, to make the voices of the voiceless heard in the public space so that others can push reflection further, and to restore confidence and awareness so that everyone can grasp the power they have as a citizen to impact their lives and their environment.