Collaboration and transformation at Carla 2020
Everyone from our contributors, from Scottish researcher Karen Boyle, Indian human rights activist Malini Chib, or UK director Amma Asante, whether Danish actress Dorte Rømer, American creator Joey Soloway or Brasilian researcher Janaína Oliveira: everyone who came on screen during this weekend had relevant, transformative, urgent and imaginative words to share for creating change in the film industry.
Hosting Carla 2020 from our fish hall studio in Karlskrona was one of the big and long-lasting events that this year unearthed.
What was supposed to be an intimate in-person conference for a small crowd in Karlskrona on the Swedish East coast, turned into a digital, multi-dimensional global conference bringing together over 160 speakers and over 3000 participants. It seemed like the global pandemic and wave of reckoning around racial injustice during 2020 propelled the urge to come together and speak, a need that maybe was there long before but didn't have the force to become that visible.
We wanted to paint a holistic and intersectional picture of what it means to live through, fight and represent structural inequalities, systemic oppression and unconscious bias; and of those who re-invent and dream up new ways to create stories. We met cultural disruptors, audiovisual creatives, global leaders and prolific researchers who unpacked social power structures and converged visions for a new world.
Being forced to turn this into a digital conference, quite frankly, has been a blessing for us in the sense that it allowed anyone to access and share knowledge widely, and it allowed us to make this a far bigger conversation than it would have been otherwise.
I'm still lacking words for the generosity and kindness with which our speakers and listeners came together.
You can rewatch most of the programme here:
Also, collected during Carla 2020, 50 Ways to Revolutionise the Film Industry:
Read the value statement of Carla 2020 (and use for your cause!):