Who we are
A cinema and cultural institution for preserving memory, developing filmmakers and producing knowledge.
Ghazala Cinematic Lab is a place for working on cinema as an experience of civilisation: what we watch on the screen, what we carry in memory, and what we produce as knowledge and programs.
We do not offer cinema as a finished product. We treat it as a web of relations: between the film and the city, between audiences and cinema theaters, between the maker and the researcher, between past and present.
We work slowly, on purpose. The quality of documentation, respect for sources and clear rights matter more than filling pages with unverified content. What is ready is published, and what is in preparation is labelled as such.
If you are a filmmaker, a researcher, a student or simply curious, you are part of the meaning we are building.
Why the gazelle
Light, alert, sure of its way in the desert, and wearing a film strip around its neck, as if it carried the stories with it wherever it goes.
Vision and mission
Screening
Film programs that bring films closer to the audience and open a discussion after the screening.
Knowledge
Research, a magazine and studies, without empty academic claims.
Memory
An archive that ties film material to its historical and local context.
Vision: a film and cultural community able to produce knowledge, keep memory, and offer screening and education programs worthy of audiences and filmmakers.
Mission: to bring screening, research, archiving and training together in one system, with local, Arab and international partnerships when they are available.
Four connected pillars
01Screening and programs
Cinema club, screenings, post screening discussions and the monthly program.
02Education and academy
Workshops, courses and film labs, from criticism to editing. In preparation.
03Research and studies
Reading Libyan, Arab and world cinema in its historical and visual context. The magazine is its first result.
04Archive and memory
Posters, testimonies, cinema theaters and materials that rebuild cinematic memory. In preparation.
History
History, for us, is not decoration. It is a tool for understanding why we choose a program and why we show a film in one month and not another. This page is not a list of dates and names that we make up.
Cinema theaters, film clubs, screening experiments and short films are all layers that shaped a changing scene. Part of it is lost, or scattered in personal memory with no archive.
An official timeline of the Lab will be published here once its documents are approved.
Founders
- Mohiman Kashoun
- Hala Al Gallali
- Hadia Gana
- Retaj Darwish
- Malek Khairi
Names as printed in issue 01 of the magazine. Biographies and portraits will be published once the team approves them.
Partners
Special thanks to Bayt Ali Gana for Culture. Screening partners: Aflamuna, the Sentiers association and Nadi Likul Alnas. The Lab is hosted by Almarsm Organization for Culture and Arts Promotion.