The Pacific Community Filmmaking Consortium – Doing Impact and Engagement during a global pandemic

MacLeod, Kirsten

Abstract

The presentation will discuss initial reflections on a UKRI funded impact and engagement project in the Pacific, aimed at addressing community based and participatory media production as a development methodology to tackle gender inequality and specifically gender based violence in the Pacific. The project seeks to build capacity amongst a network of Pacific community based filmmakers and organisations whose work with communities addresses gender inequality in vernacular terms and with local participation and frames of reference. In this presentation, members of the project team will share initial thoughts on the project’s progress, how it adapted to the global covid-19 pandemic, adapting and incorporating the restrictions into the films and distribution. The project, as the Pacific Community Filmmaking Consortium, commissioned and produced 8 films by Pacific filmmakers on gender based violence, gender inequality and Pacific responses to the covid pandemic from filmmakers and filmmaking teams in Papua New Guinea, Bougainville, The Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. It also included non-commissioned pre-existing work from Vanuatu.

The project brings together and gives visibility to a body of Pacific-made participatory films and filmmakers. Their work opens up alternative routes to understand and influence gender inequality in the Pacific. The Consortium’s approach to practice aims to foreground the impact the processes of participatory production can have on individuals and communities, and how projects can be seen as multi layered, locally embedded and culturally sensitive approaches to achieving gender based policy objectives.
The presentation will discuss questions in relation to creative practice and impact, decolonising research (and practice) and the importance of partnerships and relationships, flexible project management and working globally and locally during a pandemic.

Citation

MacLeod, K. (2021, July). The Pacific Community Filmmaking Consortium – Doing Impact and Engagement during a global pandemic. Paper presented at 2021 MPE/MeCCSA Practice Network Symposium, Solent University, Southampton

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: 2021 MPE/MeCCSA Practice Network Symposium
• Start Date: Jul 21, 2021
• End Date: Jul 23, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jul 14, 2021
• Keywords: gender; Pacific: gender based violence; filmmaking; filmmakers; community; Covid-19; pandemic; impact
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2787018
• Publisher URL: https://practice21.net
• Additional Information: Link to Video Presentation: https://practice21.net/video-papers/