Staff Stories

Meet Tristen Ives, Head of Projection

In October 2022, The Block welcomed Tristen Ives as Head Projectionist, an integral role in the Block Cinema program. We sat down with Tristen to learn more about their work and background, and the skill, technique, and care behind a projectionist’s craft. Can you tell us a bit about your background? How did you find […]

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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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Block Cinema

Picturing “The Long Term”: A discussion with Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project [Video]

Since 2011, Chicago’s Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project has brought artists, educators, and activists together with incarcerated individuals at Illinois’ Stateville Correctional Center.  Through classes, workshops, and exhibitions, PNAP creates opportunities for learning across prison walls, connecting those inside with the tools and resources needed to creatively communicate their concerns to the larger Chicago community.  […]

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Block Cinema, Our Community

Young filmmakers take on policing, surveillance, and technology at Block Cinema [Video]

On June 18, 2020, Sepehr Vakil, Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University welcomed an online audience to an unique Block Cinema program shaped by a partnership between Northwestern and Evanston Township High School. “To say that these films are deeply and acutely relevant is to state the obvious…For […]

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Block Cinema

“How do we come to believe this is the way things have to be:” Filmmaker Brett Story on the politics of access and observation

In November 2019, The Block welcomed Toronto-based filmmaker Brett Story for two nights of her acclaimed documentary films and conversation on her groundbreaking practice. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) explores the criminal justice system and mass incarceration in the U.S. from a number of oblique vantage points, rather than focusing on prisons themselves. Story looks […]

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