concept

Cinelogue provides a collaborative space for film curation, global streaming, and critical dialogue around cinema, and politics by presenting cinema by the Global Majority (people from formerly and currently colonized geographies, who make up over 80% of the world’s population).

We are committed to showcasing critical and compelling independent cinema from countries and communities within Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. While many filmmakers on our platform put issues of race, gender, and class (amongst many other forms of oppression) at the center of their filmmaking practice, others are lighter stories or satires made for joy.

For our film library we are working with curators, who have different regional and social focuses within the independent film landscape and who each carefully source a select number of films under a chosen theme. The titles are released on a weekly basis.

Next to our library films, we aspire to produce curated programs in collaboration with curators, film collectives and scholars who have a special relation to the program and create a unique dialogue through and between the showcased films. We anticipate our next program to be released in 2025.

Our platform is set up in a way that filmmakers have the option to choose the territories where we make their films available for free. 

Some films may not be available in all countries.

starting point

Our approach is guided by the continued effects of colonialism on global social and political dynamics. The hegemonic forces of the so-called Global North are well established and continue to threaten the autonomy and empowerment of countries over which they, to this day, hold much political, economic, and social power. The Euro-American film and entertainment industries continue to produce cinema that fails to challenge European perceptions that often find their roots in colonization.

The widely accepted binary and hierarchical categories of ‘foreign film’ or ‘world cinema’ only serve as a continuation of colonial relations. They project the non-western world as a homogenous space without diversity, specificity, and complexity. This results in the visual consumption of films by the Global Majority as something to be passively gazed upon rather than actively seen.

moving forward

Cinelogue seeks to act as a curated intervention that challenges the status quo of cinema. We  invite viewers to reimagine how to watch films by communities and filmmakers of the Global Majority, and bring forward a localized understanding and inter-regional connections between different films and their makers.

Cinelogue is committed to showcasing filmmakers who use film as a political and artistic vehicle. The carefully curated films center the lived experiences of those most affected by systems of social, cultural, and state oppression, such as minoritized groups, women, working class people, and people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.

The films, discourses, and stories featured on this platform allow us to engage with complex layers of inner and outer truths tied to the larger societies, histories, and collective trauma of places.

We want our audience to feel inspired and curious about new and innovative ways of accessing independent cinema, and we hope to make our contribution to changing the narrative.

contributors

Cinelogue’s contributors foreground a political stance that is, broadly speaking, rooted in the genealogies of film studies, postcolonial studies, and critical race theory. Our aim is to breathe new life into discourses around cinema as a vehicle for sociopolitical change.

While we are committed to speaking and raising awareness about current socio-political and historic contexts through cinema, we also care for our viewers by providing trigger warnings and encouraging inclusive and meaningful dialogue.

Each one of Cinelogue’s contributors comes from a unique background and approaches our shared politics in a singular way. The heterogeneity of Cinelogue’s collective effort allows us to put together compelling cinema programs and create a dynamic dialogue between films, contributors, and viewers.

subscription model

Cinelogue is an independent non-profit organization that operates through a subscription model, where 50% of the revenue from subscriptions is shared directly with the filmmakers or independent producers, and distributors the licenses belong to.

We also offer institutional subscriptions. To learn more about this offer, please get in touch with us.