AGON movie essay is now available online

The movie essay AGON: Constructions of Democracy is now available in the journal Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Essays. Following its premiere at Kino Ponrepo in October 2025, it is now freely accessible. 

The essay was created as one of the main outputs of the research project MeDeMAP. The movie essay, created by Nico Carpentier and Ali Minanto from ICSJ in collaboration with independent filmmaker Jhon Sany Purwanto, reflects on the meaning of democracy. The authors consider not only how democracy can be understood, but also the ways in which it is challenged and continuously renegotiated.

The work portrays Prague as a space of cultural encounter and, through dialogue with communities living in the Czech capital, particularly the Indonesian community, explores how the city becomes a site of social and cultural exchange. The project was inspired by the book Democracy and Media in Europe by Nico Carpentier and Jeffrey Wimmer, which examines the relationship between media and democracy in the European context. 

The movie essay combines political and cultural theory with fiction and dance and represents an experiment that brings together academic research and artistic expression. The result is an audiovisual form that invites viewers to reflect on what democracy means to us today, how it relates to urban space, and why it remains a site of political struggle. 

As Nico Carpentier explains: “Often academics write and lecture, and these are still very important modes of communication. But we can communicate in different ways as well. Using the genre of the film essay allows combining academic reflections with fictional visual narratives and dance, which offers a wonderful mixture to tell the story of contemporary democracy.” This movie essay thus opens new ways of thinking about democracy also through images, movement and the relationship to urban space.