Symposium Panel 8: Solidarity in/and the Archive

One of the challenges of the current archival moment is the creation of collectives and networks beyond restrictive notions of citizenship and the dynamics of self-contained (which often means: self-centered) institutions. How do we create and sustain such relationships and bonds of cooperation to salvage archives, make their contents accessible and harness their epistemic and affective potentials? Friendships facilitate cooperation, but the current moment requires more inclusive collectivities. Revisiting and rethinking the concept of solidarity, which played an important role in the creation of archives such as the collection of the Arsenal, offers an avenue towards the (re)creation of what we might call networks of friendship at scale.

Elizabeth Ramírez-Soto is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies in the School of the Arts at Columbia University. Her areas of research include transnational cinema and television, feminist film histories, documentary studies, and archival politics. She is interested in the interconnections between state violence, forced migration, and transnational modes of production, with a focus on Latin America. As a film curator, she has programmed several screenings related to her academic work.

Mohanad Yaqubi is a filmmaker, producer, and one of the founders of Idioms Film, an Arthouse production company based in Ramallah since 2004. He is also a member of Subversive Film, a curatorial collective focused on researching and redistributing militant cinema from Palestine and beyond. Since 2017, he has been a lecturer and researcher at KASK School of the Arts in Ghent. Yaqubi is a founding member of the Palestine Film Institute and manages its archive. With a background in mechanical engineering and a Master's in Feature Films from Goldsmith University, London, Mohanad's research explores archival practices within transnational solidarity movements. His work examines the politics, aesthetics, and cinema, while also considering imperfect archives as a way to connect living memories. His first feature film, Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory (2016), premiered at Toronto IFF, Berlinale, Cinéma du réel, Dubai IFF, and Carthage, among numerous other international premieres and screenings. His second feature, R21 AKA Restoring Solidarity (2022), debuted at Documenta 15, IDFA, Marrakesh FF, True/False, and Melbourne IFF, among others. His latest film Revolutionaries Never Die had its premiere in the section Concorso Cineasti del Presente at Locarno Film Festival 2026 and won the Ciné+OCS Special Jury Prize.

Laliv Melamed is a professor of Digital Film Cultures at Goethe University, Frankfurt. Her teaching and research center non-fiction film and media, state violence, and critical and postcolonial approaches to the visual archive, with a focus on Israel-Palestine. She is the author of Sovereign Intimacy: Private Media and the Traces of Colonial Violence (University of California Press, 2023), alongside academic articles, essays and interviews on questions of representation, memory, violence and the visual record. In addition to her academic career, Melamed worked as a film programmer and curator for DocAviv, The Left Bank film club and Oberhausen Film Festival among others.