Via Terracina 3
ROMA
Italy
- Democracy and community development
- Media
Za is the art name of Zavattini, one of the most famous screenwriter of Italian neorealism, who theorized a new kind of participatory cinema, based on the idea that “everybody is a cinematographer, if there is a conscious will of self-expressing through cinema.”
ZaLab uses the instrument of Participatory Video: a methodology of peer education to audiovisual language through practical workshops in digital filmmaking. Participatory Video, nowadays recognized by UNESCO, is a creative way to make marginal social groups (minorities, youths, women etc) skilled in self-expressing through video and in actively reacting to media stereotypes.
Participatory Video looks for unheared tales and talents, for listening their voice and dreams, for watching the world with their own eyes.
ZaLab, using visual language of cinema of reality, produces and distributes documentary films.
ZaLab runs participatory video workshops in marginalised areas of the Mediterranean. It has been running award-winning participatory video workshops in Kerchaou (Tunisia), El Jem (Tunisia), Biddu (Palestine), Stromboli (Italy), Rome (Italy), Bologna (Italy), Barcelona (Spain).
ZaLab created ZaLabTV (www.zalab.tv), the first webTV for participatory video, on-line network of web films written and directed by groups of citizens and communities from different Euro-Mediterranean countries.
ZaLab produced and distributed documentary films, such as Chanson pour Amine (Spain-France 2009, www.memorial-algerie.org) and Come un Uomo sulla Terra (Italy 2008, http://comeunuomosullaterra.blogspot.com).