The Tashkent Festival for Asian, African and Latin American Cinema, held from 1968 to 1988 in the capital of the then Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, proved to be a unique platform for meaningful exchange between filmmakers, critics, and collectives from the Asia, Africa, and South America, such as the Third World Cinema Committee or the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers. Although such collaborations went beyond, if not against, the Soviet Union’s original self-centred intentions, the festival organizers did not actively thwart the transnational solidarities fostered here.

The film festival’s importance and legacy for cinematic internationalism is thus distinct. However, it was not attended by all those who contributed to or advocated such practices at the time, nor was it by any means the only organized space for such encounters. Whether using the legacy of Tashkent as a point of departure or focusing on actors and events beyond its time and place, Manishita Dass, Masha Salazkina, and Aboubakar Sanogo will explore various aspects of cinematic internationalism. Drawing on their respective research and the oral and visual histories they have collected, they will discuss the understanding and language of these movements, highlight individual actors, films, and networks, and finally venture an outlook on how contemporary cinematic internationalism might be situated.