iska

Cinema for the people

ISKA stands for International Solidarity and Cultural Exchange. This independent media group was founded in Kassel (Germany) in the late 1980´s by university students who had already lived and worked some years in Latin America. We started with a photography workshop for students of a miners´ university in Bolivia, with the collaboration of Eduardo Galeano. In the following years, we realized several audiovisual works in Latin América, gave voice to dozens of latin american social, political and cultural activists in Germany and started to cooperate with the Student Association of the State University (USAC) in Guatemala. We began making films, realizing our own ideas and, at the same time, creating films for the people in Latin America and Europe.

The documentaries we made in Central America focussed on local themes with a universal message which successfully explored linkages between social struggles, human dignity and respect for fundamental rights. Crucially, they serve a vital role in insuring and restoring historical memory around struggle, oppression and denial of basic freedoms and inalienable rights. We made strong efforts with our Mobile Cinema Tours to break the monopole of private TV Stations and commercial film theatres which normally ignore the reality of their societies. These tours consisted of screening our films in public spaces all over Central America, Mexico and the United States and subsequently hosting open panel discussions with the audience.

Today iskacine - filmmakers and audiovisual activists - are convinced that cultural expression can both entertain while informing mass audiences and still become a tool of consciousness and a motor of liberation. The films you find on this website have both received several awards at international film festivals and – even more importantly – they have moved the hearts of thousands of people in Latin America.

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