Block Cinema, Staff Stories

Block Cinema team named to NewCity Magazine’s Film 50 List

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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Block Cinema, Global Perspectives, Partnerships

Climate Crisis + Media Arts: Block Museum partners on Buffett Institute Global Working Group

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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Block Cinema

To Render the Infinite: Kevin Jerome Everson, Paige Taul, & zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal in conversation [Audio]

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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Block Cinema

The Limits of the Archive: A Conversation with Chase Joynt [Audio]

In April 2022, Chase Joynt, director of Framing Agnes (2022), visited Block Cinema for two evenings of programs. On the first night, a workshop and screening on Joynt’s filmmaking practice welcomed students and visitors interested in documentary media, trans studies, gender studies, and queer & trans archives. The workshop event was followed the next day […]

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Artist Collaborations, Block Cinema

An Immersive Practice: Conversations with Christopher Harris, Crystal Z. Campbell & Paige Taul [Audio]

Over three nights, Block Cinema organized a series of talks and screenings with three leading video artists and filmmakers. These wide-ranging conversations touched on everything from landscape representation to abstraction, and from environmental segregation to racial violence. I don’t think experimental films in and of themselves are accessible or inaccessible. I think the apparatus around […]

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Block Cinema

Holding Binoculars, Pointing a Camera: Filmmakers Frédéric Moffet, Joelle Mercedes, and Deborah Stratman [Audio]

On February 25, 2022 filmmakers Frédéric Moffet, Joelle Mercedes, and Deborah Stratman joined Block Cinema for a conversation on their short films centered on birds and birdwatching practices. With works by Kevin Jerome Everson, Margaret Tait, Frédéric Moffet, Deborah Stratman, and additional artists, the program explored human-avian relationships from a variety of formal, emotional, and conceptual perspectives. I often […]

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