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Cinapses was a re-granting program that aimed, on the one hand, to lead members into new opportunities for institutional sustainability and programmatic development and, on the other, to foster collaboration and solidarity among them. The program encouraged joint initiatives and promoted the sharing of experiences, resources, and opportunities while activating network mobility.
As such, Cinapses built an ecosystem of tools and practices to be used by everyone in the network and the sector more broadly, advancing film circulation, community outreach, and audience engagement.
In early 2017, the Network of Arab Alternative Screens (NAAS) launched Cinapses, a pilot program aiming to strengthen the landscape of film circulation in the Arab world. The program included the allocation of subgrants to NAAS member spaces to support projects aiming to build audiences and expand outreach. Within this framework, a total of eight projects submitted by the NAAS member spaces received financial support in the form of a “sub–grant”.
Each project put forth by the members benefited from what was called, in a grant proposal document approved by the Open Society Institute Budapest Foundation, a “sub-granting package”. The package consisted in logistical, financial support, mediation between partners, and capacity building for personnel and on establishing partnerships, depending on the needs of each project.
This experience, which was also called CINAPSES pilot phase, was further supported by two more important grants: the first by the Open Society Institute Budapest Foundation, an institute part of the Open Society Foundations, and the second by the Ford Foundation, implemented respectively since April 2017 and May 2018.
REGARDS DE FEMMES by Fédération Tunisienne des Ciné-Club
Location: Hammamet, Tunisia
Date: 18-22 October 2017
Regards de Femmes was the first edition of a yearly women’s film festival featuring films directed by women and/or dealing with gender-related issues, with a focus on the Arab region, Africa, and South America. The festival took place in Hammamet, a northern city in Tunisia.
NOWPLAYING by Cinema Akil LLC
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Date: 15 July–30 September 2017
NOWPLAYING was a summer season of arthouse, independent, repertory, and alternative cinema every night for six weeks at Warehouse 68 at Alserkal Avenue in Dubai. The overall aim of the program was outreach – to increase Cinema Akil’s exposure to a larger audience – and to test the beta version of what would be their permanent home as the first independent cinema in the Gulf.
FILM/DIALOGUE AND PRODUCTION FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH by FilmLab: Palestine
Location: Palestine
Date: May–October 2017
This threefold program included a training of trainers whereby seven Palestinian filmmakers received training from two Danish film production specialists in running film education workshops for children and youth; The trained filmmakers then conducted six workshops for ninety children in eight different locations in Palestine. The program concluded with a series of young audience screenings during the Days of Cinema film festival organized yearly by FilmLab: Palestine in October, attracting over 2,000 children.
ÉDUCATION AU CINÉMA – GÉNÉRATION CINÉ by CinéMadart
Location: Tunisia
Date: October 2017–February 2018
This program, Cinma Education – Cinema Generation, was held by the Tunis-based movie theater CinéMadart as a pilot version of a wider, cinema education project, addressing school children aged twelve to fifteen. This pilot involved ten pupils from Assad Ibn Fourat high school, located in El Kram, a disadvantaged area neighboring CinéMadart. They participated in a week-long initiation to the critical reading of moving images and to a filmmaking workshop concluding with a public screening of the short films that were produced. Read EDUCATION - Génération Ciné œuvre dans 12 collèges tunisiens (Le petitjournal Tunis) for more details.
CINEMA ON THE ROAD by Metropolis Cinema
Date: October 2017–April 2018
Location: Lebanon
Cinema on the Road is a film literacy project in Lebanon aimed at reaching children and youth in Lebanese public schools in addition to Syrian and Palestinian refugee camps, who do not have access to film culture or films as an educational tool, in order to explore a new world of culture and raise the interest in films as a form of self-expression. This new edition of Cinema on the Road consisted of three parts: the “Outreach Screenings” (in refugee camps and informal settlements) took place from November 2017 until February 2018; the Mobile Cine Club (screenings for public schools) took place in January and February 2018; and the MY Film Fest (children and youth film festival), which took place in April 2018.
SUDAN FILM SCREENS by Sudan Film Factory
Date: JULY–DECEMBER 2017
Location: Khartoum, SUDAN
SUDAN FILM SCREENS was a series of curated screenings presented on a monthly basis by Sudan Film Factory to local audiences in Khartoum and the city of Wad Madani.
EXHIBITION and DISTRIBUTION by Zawya Cinema & Distribution
Date: OCTOBER 2017 - MARCH 2018
Location: Alexandria - Port-Said - Ismailia - Zagazig - Qena - Mansoura - Assiout - Damietta - Menya, Egypt
The Cairo-based arthouse cinema Zawya set up in October 2017 partnerships with cinema spaces and individuals living in different provinces across Egypt, who were interested and willing to start a “Zawya Screen” in their cities. The program unfolded with weekly screenings in Alexandria, Port Said, and Ismailia (October 2017–March 2018); one-off screenings in Damietta, Qena, and Mansoura; and special screenings under the framework of the Panorama of European Film in Zagazig, Menya, Qena, Mansoura, Assiout, and Damietta (November 2017). Q&As and masterclasses were also held with European and Egyptian filmmakers in Alexandria, Ismailia, and Port Said.
INDOORS/PREMIERS GESTES by Wekalet Behna
Date: 16-20 SEPTEMBER 2017
Location: Alexandria, EGYPT
Indoors/Premiers Gestes is a collaboration between Wekalet Behna in Alexandria (Egypt) and Archipels Images. The program featured two different workshops: a film criticism-writing workshop held at Wekalet Behna in Alexandria, moderated by three mentors from Wekalet Behna and Archipels Images and targeted at film critics, cinema students, and filmmakers recently graduated from film school; and a filmmaking workshop for three trainees who were invited to produce each a short film around the theme “portraying the city in a close space,” under the mentorship of three invited filmmakers. The workshops concluded with a public screening of the short films.
In 2017, NAAS organised a project development workshop in Morocco, conceived as the starting point of Cinapses. The twelve participants of the workshop submitted a total of eight projects focused on reconfiguring their audiences and reaching beyond their spaces and towards their surrounding communities.
The closed call for proposals was launched in June 2018. Sixteen submissions were collected and submitted to the granting jury, who offered recommendations on the most appropriate type of feedback and support that NAAS could provide.
The granting jury consisted of three members who nominated themselves, following a call which took place early 2018: Hania Mroué (Metropolis, Beirut), Mohamed Lansari (Cinémathèque de Tanger, Tangier), and Hanna Atallah (Filmlab: Palestine, Ramallah). Following this meeting, the NAAS staff compiled their feedback and shared it with the co-applicants. Each joint initiative benefitted from a technical review of finances and received a set of recommendations, inviting the co-applicants to submit a revised proposal.
Subsequently, NAAS members submitted to the staff a total of nine finalized proposals and budgets.
The final decisions regarding the allocation of grants were based on the recommendations of and approved by the granting jury. The decision-making process took into account the joint initiative’s relevance to the network’s long term objectives and considered budgeting and operational capacity of each co-applicant. After the staff shared the grant decisions with each set of co-applicants, contracts were signed by co-applicants during the regional meeting that took place on December 3-5, 2018, in Marrakech.
Building on the achievements and challenges of the pilot sub-granting program, all joint initiatives receiving support from Cinapses took place in 2019. They advance the program’s core priorities, featuring components such as:
Coordination for young audience initiatives and co-creation of educational tools
Strengthening non-traditional channels for circulating films via innovative programming strategies
Enhancing community screenings outside of traditional cinema spaces via the sistering of cinema networks across national borders
Dissemination of creative film programs among member spaces
Strategic partnerships within and without the cultural sector with research institutions and media outlets
