Hey all, we're this new film cooperative in Seattle...

[Cinema Politica Seattle]

... and we think this is a pretty great community to share our work with.

Cinema Politica is an international organization composed of autonomous 'locals' (chapters) which facilitates screenings of films that deal with social justice, critical and political theory, homelessness, and other related topics which are not given space by capital. Consequently, our mission is to screen films of this nature for everyone, for free, and with the intention to bring ideas presented in this media off the screen and into community discourse.

Last month we screened 'Marx Reloaded' and talked about it afterwards. First Wednesday of May we're screening 'Dive,' a film about consumer waste.

I'm Jon, one of the four co-founders. Great to meet you all. I have some questions myself, but I will do that in another post. Feel free to ask me anything

 

[ped]

That's really cool! Any online resources for those far from Seattle?

 

[scatwomb]

How could we start up a chapter in our hometowns? I have been thinking a lot about starting a film night every few weeks here.

I live in Moscow, ID, which would be pretty receptive to something like this.

 

[Cinema Politica Seattle]

As far as online resources go, I can point you towards our parent organization's website, cinemapolitica.org. We have our social networking shit going too, but it's not really useful outside Seattle (Facebook, or @FreeFilmSeattle).

As far as starting your own, there is some information on their website concerning that. You need to take a few steps before they send you DVDs that you can start considering. First, you need some people to help you. Find some friends or eager college students and make regular meetings to develop a Mission Statement, start drafting press releases, and figure out how to get money. Unfortunately, our federal government's contribution to the arts pales in comparison to Canada's, so chapters need to raise over $500 to cover screening rights and bureaucratic fees (CP has a small office staff). Oh, and a space. You need one of those too.

You have the option to formally attach your chapter to a university as a Student Organization, which was an option available to myself and my partners through the University of Washington. We decided not to, for various reasons. We can talk about the politics of this, too.

 

[Matt Derrick]

do local chapters have to pay for screening rights to dvd's they're sent?

 

[Cinema Politica Seattle]

We have to pay an annual fee for the rights to screen any DVD from their library of roughly 400, for some reason in the U.S. we can only choose from 300. To screen other films, a local would have to acquire the rights on their own by contacting the publisher or filmmaker.

edit: here's a page of selected films and trailers at our disposal