PRESENT FUTURES: SCI-FI AND SOCIAL ECOLOGY is a program of short films from Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and their diaspora, guest curated by Róisín Tapponi of the Habibi Collective.

PRESENT FUTURES: SCI-FI AND SOCIAL ECOLOGY
(Various Artists, 2009-2019, Various Countries, digital, approx. 82 min)

Starting at 7 PM Central Time on October 29th, “Present Futures” will be available to watch on Block’s Vimeo page for a 24-hour period.

Please RSVP through Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/122764422693

ABOUT THE FILMS:
“Present Futures” is the first of two shorts programs guest-curated by the Habibi Collective, a digital archive and curatorial platform based in London, focused on femxle filmmaking from the Middle East and North Africa. This screening features short films by women that imagine futures and forms of resilience in a time of climate violence. The films include Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour’s IN VITRO, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi short about loss and revival. Each film explores how the climate crisis intersects with ongoing questions of inheritance and resistance in the Arab world.

SUBMARINE
(Mounia Akl, 2016, Lebanon, 20 min)

IN VITRO
(Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind, 2019, Palestine/UK, 28 min)

BEFORE I FORGET
(Mariam Mekiwi, 2018, Egypt/Germany, 31 min)

The films in “Present Futures: Sci-Fi and Social Ecology” appear with permission from the artists.

ABOUT THE HABIBI COLLECTIVE:
Róisín Tapponi is a curator, writer, editor, and researcher currently based in London. In 2018 she founded Habibi Collective, a digital archive and curatorial platform for MENA women’s filmmaking. She is currently developing the first independent streaming service for MENA cinema, SHASHA Movies Ltd.

Tapponi has directed four regional film festivals, including Independent Iraqi Film Festival (IIFF). She has curated programmes on MENA filmmaking in galleries, academic institutions, festivals and cinemas across the world. Tapponi currently works at The Mosaic Rooms, a gallery in Kensington dedicated to contemporary Arab art.

PART OF THE BLOCK CINEMA SERIES:
LIBERATING HISTORY: ARAB FEMINISMS AND MEDIATED PASTS

Liberating History: Arab Feminisms and Mediated Pasts celebrates Arab women filmmakers. The films draw on archival material, Islamic visual culture, and ethnographic practice to bring a decolonial and feminist perspective to personal and national pasts. The series includes path-breaking films such as Heiny Srour’s LEILA AND THE WOLVES, which centers Arab women’s struggles in the region’s modern history, and Selma Baccar’s FATMA 75, an essay film combining history and fantasy, as well as other rare and recent selections from the Middle East and North Africa. The series will also feature two nights of short films curated by the Habibi Collective.

Co-presented by The Block Museum of Art with support from the Middle East and North African Studies Program at NU and Cultural Services of the French Embassy

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Tags: Evanston, Habibi Collective, Liberating History - Present Futures (Habibi Collective Shorts I), Roisin Tapponi, The Block Museum