Documentary Media MFA Showcase 2024
Cinema in Relation: Yearnings for the Beyond
Program 1: Metamorphoses of Memory

Cinema in Relation: Yearnings for the Beyond is the 2024 thesis showcase of Northwestern University’s Documentary Media program. For two nights, 7 emerging filmmakers from all over the world will share experiences that serve as a vessel through the complex terrain of cultural identity, shared history and belonging. Embrace the universal quest for connection in a world that feels fragmented and distant by experiencing two unique screenings at The Block Cinema.

Program 1: Metamorphoses of Memory, premiering on Wednesday June 5, will feature three short films from an eclectic web of transnational relations across Ireland, Haiti, China, and the US through essayistic, verite, archival, and slow cinema modes. Transnational cameras become mediators unearthing long buried questions, possibilities and revelations. Bringing past events into the immediate present, distance between the personal and political conflates, each one enveloping the other. Metamorphoses of Memory ponders the possibility of personal and societal change through turning toward, not away from, that which is closest to us. This program will feature films by Lulu Tian, Obed Lamy, and Erik Nuding.

About the films in Program One:

A Pool In Which I Play (2024, 20 min) by Erik Nuding

When severe storms threaten to break down the emotional walls built between the filmmaker’s mother and grandmother, shared memories, dreams and reflections of water begin to flow, leading us down into the metallic interiors which connect them. As mystical allegory meets climate reality, A Pool In Which I Play pulsates in the brackish breath space between tension and release.

Put Your Heart Down (2024, 20 min) by Luyao Tian

What does the passage of time feel like for us, when we don’t have the habit of remembering? My family and I wander through moments of loss and reconnection across China and America.

Did You Test Me? (2024, 13 min) by Obed Lamy

A Haitian woman grapples with the memory of an incident that made her a target of discrimination during the AIDS epidemic in the United States.

Following the screening, filmmaker Edgar Jorge Baralt will join the MFA filmmakers for a conversation and Q&A with the audience.

For more information on Program 2: Places of Memory = Reconstruction, premiering on Thursday June 6 at The Block: https://bit.ly/cinemarelation-2

FREE & OPEN TO ALL

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Tags: Block Museum, Cinema in Relation: Yearnings for the Beyond – Program 1, Erik Nuding, Lulu Tian, Northwestern University, Obed Lamy, Yearnings for the Beyond – Program 1