MONDO NIGHTS: FILMS AND FUNDRAISING
Overview:
In the wake of the Covid Pandemic, there had been a real decline in the social spaces of London, we aimed to start a film night that would bring film to venues that had dried up since the pandemic.
Aim:
To bring together audiences who otherwise may not be drawn to the cinema, to see films that no one else was screening, and to raise awareness and funds for grassroots causes who would share their knowledge and skillset with a wider audience in return.
Audience target:
We sought to bring together grassroots activists from diverse cultural spaces, with audiences from working class communities, and to market these screenings in a way that would bring in those who may otherwise not attend the cinema. Our film screenings took place in lesser used venues, clubs and pubs, in neighbourhoods with less access to arts and culture, which helped to shape the audience themselves. We worked closely with a series of grassroots causes in order to achieve this goal. That activist set continued to attend leading to socialising between these groups.
CASE STUDY ONE - Cybertease Sex Workers’ Co-op
Working with the Cybertease Co-op we programmed a series of four films around sex work and questions related to its criminalisation. We had 300 attendees and raised over 1k for the Co-op. The co-op also delivered a Q and A around the time, that argued their case for decriminalisation.
CASE STUDY TWO - Hackney Cop Watch
Hackney Cop Watch are engaged in the monitoring of police in the North East London Burough of Hackney, which has historical and ongoing issues with police brutality, and working class resistance to that policing.
CASE STUDY THREE - The Independent Workers’ of Great Britain
The Independent Workers’ of Great Britain are a labour union that has taken influence from the Industrial Worker’s of the World to organise industries that have not previously had strong histories of trade unionism. We were able to raise over 1k pounds for the union and also to organise and facilitate a training session “how to organise your workplace” which taught workers the first steps in building a trade union.
Metrics:
With no start up capital we were able to raise thousands of pounds for these grassroots causes and more. The work was self sustaining allowing us to continue and to expand.
Over 5k people attended our events over the space of a year.
We put on forty events.
The London Indian Film Festival and the London Science Fiction Film Festival hired us as programmers.
Later, the London Short Film Festival asked us to create original film content. We screened an archive film with Estonian advertising of the Soviet Era combined with Public Information films of the UK’s COI government agency. 500 people attended our screening at the Rio Cinema.
We published three magazines which encouraged the participation of attendees and featured the writing of sex workers, police monitoring activists, trade unionists, bike messengers, MCs, crooks, filmmakers, fighters, and others who aren’t normally a part of critical discourse around film.
