GENTLE/RADICAL’S 15TH ANNIVERSARY
Running a cinema is a hard game. Even more so running a community cinema, where the aim is not just to show the latest films but to find new experiences – films around which a discussion can start or a dialogue open. Gentle/Radical have been in the game now for 15 years, an impressive achievement, and this March, in conjunction with International Women’s Day, they’ll be celebrating that birthday with a selection of screenings, plus the debut of a short film documenting some of their work.
But what’s the thinking behind Gentle/Radical? “The idea is always to democratise access to space” says Rabab Ghazoul, G/R’s director. “We work with access to cultural provisions – so our work if often very ground-up. A lot of the work exists through a focus on conversation and dialogue.”
The focus is often on engaging female ethnic and minority communities, but it’s just as much about being as inclusive and diverse as possible. It sounds easy enough – you might think, well, if you want to go to the cinema, you just go, but it’s not always that simple. Outreach co-ordinator Radha Patel chimes in: “[A cultural space] puts out a film from X or Y country and then whoever comes, comes. But people come because they have a natural fluency in coming into a space. If you’ve grown up going to certain cultural spaces, you know how to [move through them]. But if you don’t have that – for example, if your parents didn’t have the money for the cinema – then these places feel out of your comfort zone.”
Rabab tells me of a fiftysomething Pakistani woman who once visited a G/R event: “She had never been to the cinema before. And even just going to the box office, getting a ticket, finding a seat – those are all cultural literacy skills that some people grow up with and some don’t.”
Art doesn’t exist without an audience, and G/R has been sustained first and foremost by a willing audience. How has the film club managed that? “We really go that extra mile – not by Facebooking and putting it out on social media but actually going into communities and literally inviting them.” Sitting down, talking one-on-one, getting people interested and finding a dialogue with fellow humans. For 15 years that’s served them well, unsurprisingly enough. FEDOR TOT
Gentle/Radical 15th Anniversary Celebrations, Samaj Community Centre, Cardiff, Wed 27 Mar. Tickets: £5/£3.50/free for asylum seekers. Info: facebook.com/gentleradical