As a freshman, Northwestern student Rowan McCloskey attended as many Block Cinema screenings as he could. As a sophomore, he became a Block Museum Student Associate (BMSA) after learning about the program through a posting in The Daily Northwestern’s e-newsletter. “Both of those things really cemented my relationship with The Block,” he said. “And because […]
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Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós’ visionary hybrid of documentary and science-fiction, Dry Ground Burning (2022) envisions an alternate present, in which a daring group of outlaw women pirates, refines and distributes petrol in the working-class neighborhoods of Bolsonaro’s Brazil. Between run-ins with inept security forces and tense negotiations with motorcycle-riding couriers, gang leader Chitara (Joana […]
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The renowned Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul became fascinated as a young boy by the sounds and moving images his mother, a physician, could conjure with medical equipment – the beat of a human heart heard through a stethoscope, the sight of a microorganism wriggling under a microscope. “I think, more or less, at that time […]
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Damien Chazelle’s meticulously-realized film First Man (2018) follows astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and wife Janet (Claire Foy) on the long and difficult path that led from the death of their daughter Karen in 1962 to his 1969 moon landing. While FIRST MAN has no shortage of thrilling astronautical sequences, Chazelle is less interested in […]
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Roger Corman’s visionary 1963 sci-fi classic X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes follows a scientist (Ray Milland) who develops eyedrops that allows him to see beyond the spectrum of visible light, penetrating mysteries of the human body and the deepest reaches of the cosmos. What starts out as a hospital drama about medical ethics […]
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This season Block Cinema in among 40 national organizations selected by the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as 2022−23 recipients of the Science on Screen® grant program. Selected recipients receive funds to create Science on Screen events, which pair expert-led discussions of scientific topics with screenings of feature and documentary films […]
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In December 2022, New City Magazine shared its list of the 50 most influential professionals in Chicago’s film and media community, including Block Cinema’s own Michael Metzger, Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts, and Malia Haines-Stewart, Associate Film Programmer. The magazine includes an essay articulating Block Cinema’s work and unique impact. Michael Metzger and Malia Haines-StewartPick-Laudati Curator of […]
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A pioneering work of Moroccan women’s cinema, A Door to the Sky (Bab Al-Sama Maftuh, 1988) by Farida Benlyazid is a powerful feminist tale of Islamic spiritual awakening and the interplay of cultural heritage and modern identity. The Block Museum of Art screened the film in October 2022, in conjunction with its presentation of the […]
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What does climate change actually look and feel like? From forest fires in the American West and desertification in northern China to climate migration in coastal Louisiana and Latin America, the ongoing climate emergency is a global problem that demands radically new, collaborative modes of scholarship and creativity. For the past few years Michael Metzger, the […]
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In May 2022, Block Cinema organized “To Render the Infinite,” a screening that brought together scholars and filmmakers to consider the role of the camera and the moving image in capturing and cultivating generational and familial relationships. The unique program connected the work of Kevin Jerome Everson, Paige Taul, & zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal in […]
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