LONDON.- This summer the Whitechapel Gallery presents five new artists' films as part of Artists’ Film International, a touring programme of film, video and animation selected by 15 organisations from around the world.

Coinciding with the exhibition The Spirit of Utopia, which looks at the role art can play in offering alternative ways of configuring society, this season’s films are based on social and collaborative projects.

In German artist Nasan Tur‘s video Berlin says…(2009) the artist spray paints graffiti slogans taken from the streets of the city on to a blank wall. From political and activist slogans to romantic declarations and humorous comments, the words are sprayed on top of one another to create an undistinguishable block of colour in which language is obliterated. The Attic (2012) is the second of Italian artist Marinella Senatore’s trilogy of filmed operas and brings together a cast and crew of over 16,000 people in Derby, England. The volunteers worked with Senatore to develop all aspects of the production, creating an archive shaped by the local community.

Serbian artist Katarina Zdjelar’s work My Lifetime (Malaika) (2012) features Ghana’s National Symphony Orchestra and was recorded in the capital city Accra. In the film the orchestra play an empowering postcolonial composition in a performance which explores tradition, local values and colonial independence. Israeli artist Einat Amir presents her latest collaborative project I Will Be Your Guide for This Session (2013), in which volunteers explore the mechanics of group therapy through workshops, while Argentinian artist Ana Gallardo’s film Don Raúl (2012) features a 93-year-old professional dancer performing in a public square, challenging the representation and perception of old age in society.

Einat Amir is selected by the New Media Centre, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel; Ana Gallardo by Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Marinella Senatore by GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy; Nasan Tur by Video-Forum, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany; Katarina Zdjelar by Belgrade Cultural Centre, Belgrade, Serbia.