ZaLabTV, web television for participatory video (Stefano Collizzolli)
From Civilmedia
"A film all made by dreams might be an important documentary for our successors: otherwise they could hardly be aware of what the citizens of contemporary war time dreamt” - Cesare Zavattini[1]
ZaLab TV [2] is the first international web-television fully dedicated to participatory video. ZaLab TV’s mission is to showcase web films written and directed by groups of citizens and communities from different Euro-Mediterranean countries and beyond, who use video as a creative and participatory tool for breaking social, geographical and cultural isolation, and countering media stereotypes.
In the 60s, Cesare Zavattini wrote: “there is an urgent need of taking over low cost media and to make it as popular as paper, ink, colours. Make films and lenses as familiar as sewing machines”. ZaLab TV believes that the need of a participatory takeover of digital media is even stronger in the globalized world. Linking local participatory video experiences and publishing their best stories on line: this is Zalab TV’s path to Zavattini’s dream.
ZaLab TV is an online network of participatory video workshops across (at present) four Mediterranean countries: Italy, Palestine, Spain, and Tunisia. ZaLab TV’s website provides a virtual space where workshop participants can meet, and discuss and publish their videos.
The online forum opens up an exchange of ideas and opinions across ZaLab TV hubs, linking up local knowledge and experience from different communities.
ZaLab TV hubs are free to upload works in progress, for critical review and discussion online with other hubs.
Control stays with the participants from project conception through to implementation and thereafter.
Authorship of a group of participants means control over content and freedom of expression, initiating a process of strengthened analysis and voice at a local level.
ZaLab TV bridges very different participatory video experiences from different countries, with the aim of collecting unheard stories and meeting unknown talents from beyond the wall of the digital divide.
30' meeting, with screenings stefano collizzolli // stefano.collizzolliATunipd.it www.zalab.tv // www.zalab.org info@zalab.org
