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Film short abstract:

‘Spółdzielnia/Co-operative’ is a visual ethnography filmed across five years, telling the story of a co-operative in Manchester run by Polish migrants. It is a story about social engagement, migration, and a community that typically escapes media and academic attention.

Film long abstract:

‘Spółdzielnia/Cooperative’ is a visual ethnography portraying the everyday work of a socially engaged cooperative in Manchester, UK, which in the quest to protect the environment sells organic, fair-trade coffee from a self-made bicycle-trailer, and which is run mainly by Polish migrants. The film is, after internationally awarded ‘Active (citizen)’ (Goldstein & Lorenz 2019), the second ethnographic documentary of the ‘Visualising the Invisible’ project, which looks at the potential of visual ethnography to explore the activism of migrants and ethnic minorities outside of their community organisations. The film revolves around three key themes. Firstly, it explores the field of everyday activism (Goldstein 2017) – the type of activism which happens not in NGOs or protest movements but rather in everyday engagements, including in social businesses where the balance between activism and moneymaking is continuously confronted and negotiated. Secondly, it looks at migrant activism for causes completely detached from migrant-group advocacy or interests. It portrays a Polish community that exists in parallel to the formal ‘Polish Community’ epitomised by the Polish church, Saturday school, etc. and is in many ways very different from that community. Finally, and most importantly from the point of view of visual anthropology, the film is an experiment in longitudinal visual study of a community in the process of developing and constituting itself. Recorded over five years of participant observation, the film is a story of placemaking, belonging and affirming social citizenship in a new country.

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Film short abstract:

This ethnographic film follows three migrant women in Sweden—Nada, Maryam, and Abeer—through the MaHoMe project, exploring how they redefine home. Based on 50+ interviews, it reveals the fluidity of integration and their resilience in transforming foreign spaces into places of belonging.

Film long abstract:

This ethnographic film invites viewers into the deeply personal journeys of three migrant women—Nada, Maryam, and Abeer—who are navigating life in Sweden. Framed by the MaHoMe project, which investigates how migrants cultivate a sense of home, the film draws from extensive research, including over 50 interviews conducted in the UK, Denmark, and Sweden by Dr. Eleonora Narvselius and Dr. Nada Al-Hudaid.

Through their lived experiences, the film delves into the evolving concept of integration, showing how it takes on different meanings for each woman. Homemaking emerges as an intimate and creative process—shaped by everyday routines, cultural adaptation, and a resilient spirit. From personal rituals to community ties, Nada, Maryam, and Abeer redefine what home means in a constantly shifting landscape, offering a poignant reflection on migration, identity, and belonging.

Additionally, the film features an interview with Swedish artist Henrik Teleman, who collaborated with the MaHoMe project. Having previously worked with refugees, Teleman designed two sensory workshops exploring the theme of homemaking. His past work includes a compelling book compiling photos shared by refugees from their cell phones, offering a unique perspective on displacement and memory. His insights enrich the film’s exploration of how migrants transform unfamiliar spaces into homes through creativity, connection, and resilience.

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Film short abstract:

The film is a reflexive story of a collaborative film project. It tells about a group of 14-year-old international boys in a Finnish town. It follows their freetime activities; the good times they have together and their social interactions with each other and with the researcher.

Film long abstract:

Temporary labour migration of skilled professionals is increasing in various parts of the world. Often, such expatriates are accompanied by their children but very little is known of their views and experiences. In her ethnographic research project, Korpela investigated the views and experiences of such children and youth in Finland. During her fieldwork, she filmed a group of 14-year-old boys on their free time in a Finnish town. The film is a reflexive story of this collaborative film project. The film tells about the boys’ freetime activities; the good times they have together and their social interactions with each other and with the researcher. The film also shows the boys’ reflections on their lives and experiences as “foreigners” in a Finnish town.

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Film short abstract:

Cross-border workers from Poland employed in warehouses in Brandenburg, Germany, and the gigafactory producing electric cars near the border, spend 3-5 hours a day commuting. In this film, they talk about their daily commute and its impact on their lives.

Film long abstract:

The film explores the experiences of cross-border workers who commute daily between the regions of Lubuskie in Poland and Brandenburg in Germany. In their narratives, the road emerges as a structuring principle of mobile lives within the “inner peripheries”: both the spatial and temporal logic of everyday life and the affective emphasis within the narratives are centred on travel. Given this focus and the dispersed nature of our field, we adopted a multi-sited and mobile approach, following workers’ routes between places of residence and work. This fieldwork strategy, documented in the film, responded to the limited time of our research participants and allowed us to understand their experiences of everyday mobility better. While the film’s soundtrack aims to amplify marginalised voices, articulating the spatiotemporal dimensions of cross-border labour, the visuals aim to convey the experience of being on the road, creating a point of convergence between researchers and participants.