When Queer Cinema meets Mindfulness

As part of the Queer Film Festival Munich (QFFM), Ukrainian filmmaker and cultural studies scholar Anastasia Nizamova invites you to the workshop “When Queer Cinema meets Mindfulness” on Saturday, October 17, at 2 pm. In this experimental format, the Odesa-raised and now Munich-based artist combines mindfulness exercises with film theory and elements of “Slow Cinema” to help participants experience film, time and their viewing habits in a new way. Buy your tickets now!

Ever-shortening attention spans shape our everyday lives and the way we watch films. According to the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, habit and abstract thought cover the lived world with a layer of ready-made concepts: We no longer perceive things, we merely identify them as members of familiar categories.

Art has the task of stripping away this layer and returning us to the pre-reflective experience in which the world is still forming, so that we can perceive it anew, as if for the first time.

Slow Cinema

Anastasia Nizamova develops this idea in her experimental format “When Queer Cinema Meets Mindfulness.” It is an event that combines the art theory of defamiliarization, elements of Slow Cinema, and mindfulness practices. The goal is to let participants experience film, time, and their own viewing habits in a new way. Here you can find more details on the workshop concept

The workshop is led by Anastasia Nizamova, a Ukrainian filmmaker and cultural studies scholar based in Munich. She holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies from Odesa Mechnykov National University, where she wrote her thesis on the interpretation of reality in postmodern cinema.

Later, Anastasia studied film directing at the Odessa Film Studio. After the start of the russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she emigrated to Germany, where she has worked with, among others, Münchner Kammerspiele, Kalekone Film, Recycled TV and the Hof International Film Festival.

Queer Cinema meets Mindfulness Meditative practices while watching movies
When Saturday, 17 October 2026, 2 pm to 3.30 pm
Where Seidlvilla, Nikolaiplatz 1B, 80802 Munich
Tickets 11 to 13 Euro BUY NOW
Language English
Organised by Munich Kyiv Queer, QFFM, Bellevue di Monaco, Munich Pride, Department of Culture of the City of Munich

This is how you can donate

INDIVIDUAL HELP Munich Kyiv Queer has its own fundraising campaign via https://www.paypal.me/ConradBreyer to support queer people in Ukraine who are in need or on the run. Why? Because not all LGBTIQ* are organised in the local LGBTIQ*-groups. This help is direct, fast and free of charge if you choose the option “For friends and family” on PayPal. If you don’t have PayPal, you can alternatively send money to the private account of Conrad Breyer, speaker of Munich Kyiv Queer, IBAN: DE427015000021121454.

All requests from the community are meticulously checked in cooperation with our partner organisations in Ukraine. If they can help themselves, they take over. If the demands for help exceed their (financial and/or material) possibilities, we will step in.

HELP FOR LGBTIQ* ORGANISATIONS To support LGBTIQ* in Ukraine we have helped set up the Alliance Queer Emergency Aid Ukraine, in which around 40 German LGBTIQ* Human Rights organisations are involved. All these groups have access to very different Human Rights organisations in Ukraine and use funds for urgently needed care or evacuation of queer people. Every donation helps and is used 100 percent to benefit queer people in Ukraine. Donate here

VULNERABLE GROUP And here you can find out why queer people in war need our support.

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