This call is addressed to international programmers, programme managers, curators and film experts with an interest in independent film and video art, who are working worldwide in the institutional or non-governmental sector, including PhD researchers. Residents who do not live and work in Belgium may apply to the call.

During the period of 10 days, two residents (one for the October and another for the November residency) will have the opportunity to visit Flemish film and video archives (Argos, VAF, Cinematek, Plus-tot te laat, Cinema Nova, Auguste Orts, 68septante, Kran Film); meet Flemish film makers and film professionals; deliver a lecture, debate or presentation at the RITS School of Arts; and present a screening programme at Beursschouwburg.

The residency wishes to raise questions of citizenship in a multinational and multiethnic society, about neo-liberalism, migrations, populism, de-colonialism, gender, ethics and the like. Eurocentric and multipolar order, as well as contingent and precarious identities are to be examined.

The residency is organised around different themes:

1) Labour (October residency) - Today, when multinationals seek out cheap labour and focus on export regardless of local needs, advanced economies face growing unemployment and developing countries suffer from a lack of adequate market access. It is in this light that we want to envisage the ethical issues regarding labour and economy as they encourage nationalism, migration and poverty.

2) gender (November residency) – Judith Butler comes to terms with the use of an ontology of sexual difference as a justification for norms of gendered behaviour. For her, the body “has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality” and it is considered to be contingent and discoursivly constructed. This is the position from which we argue freedom for all, equal treatment of all differences, and acknowledgment of multiplicity of subject positions.