A new culture campaign recently launched on local crowdfunding platform Zaar aims to help shine a spotlight on the experiences of senior women in Malta.
The campaign supports the production of a documentary that looks behind the scenes at the making of a collective theatre production named F’Ħakka t’Għajn.
The socially-engaged theatre project began in March 2021, when six women attending a village Active Ageing Centre accepted an invitation to work with a professional creative team to create and perform a collective theatre production. However, ongoing restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic delayed rehearsals and did not permit live performance – inspiring a change of plan to instead film the production for later screening.
“This solution, however, absorbed all the project’s budget, since it had to cover the costs of filming the performance over three days instead of a one-hour live performance,” explains Isabelle Gatt, who leads the project and its ‘Combatting Ageism – Community Theatre with Senior Women’ campaign on Zaar.
“We are now looking to fund a documentary that captures the process of co-creating the performance and the resilience, enthusiasm and joie de vivre of these women throughout.”
The documentary will include clips of the process and the performance, already recorded in a television studio and screened in Active Ageing Centres across Malta, as well as interviews with the six women and members of the artistic team. Once complete, it will also feature in various arts-engaged international exhibitions and festivals, before becoming available to watch online.
The documentary will include clips of the production process and the performance.“We hope to raise €2,700 through the campaign, which will settle the expenses of filming interviews, editing previous footage and final post-production, to create a documentary that will both record the process and share the methodology we have used with other community workers,” Gatt continues.
“While this means that a theatre event is now recorded and has already been viewed by hundreds of Active Ageing members – and will also be available to many others once it is online – we believe it is important to document the process of co-creating with seniors and listening to what they have to say about such an experience. The documentary aims to do just that, with the help of donations from the community itself via Zaar.”
Backers of the campaign who donate of €20 will receive a link to a Zoom screening of the performance on April 1 at 6pm. As well as the chance to view this performance, those who donate €50 will also receive additional links to a screening of the documentary at 7pm on April 1 and to a Zoom meeting with the creative team on March 8 at 7pm.
While the performance is in Maltese with no subtitles and is around 50 minutes in length, the 10-minute documentary is narrated in English and Maltese, with subtitles in English.