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 […]
Read moreTo 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 […]
Read moreThe 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 […]
Read more“We all do come from a place”: A conversation with filmmaker Fox Maxy [Video]
On November 5, 2020 Block Cinema welcomed California-based artist Fox Maxy (Ipai Kumeyaay and Payómkawichum) for a screening and conversation of his work. The works in the program, California Girls (2018), Maat Means Land (2020), and San Diego (2020), offered a prismatic and timely vision of the artist’s home state, viewed through the lens of […]
Read moreThe Block Museum celebrates Arab women filmmakers with online series, Liberating History
Moving across languages, national boarders, and cinematic styles, the wide spectrum of feminist filmmaking by women from the Middle East and North Africa is largely unknown in the United States. The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University sets out to shine a light on this body of work with Liberating History: Arab Feminisms and […]
Read more“It’s not a picture, It’s a tool”: A conversation on The Area, and documentary as a frame for community action
In the heart of the South Side of Chicago, an 85-acre area abutting a railyard means different things to different people. For more than 400 African American families, it is home. For Norfolk Southern railroad company, it is space to expand its train-to-truck intermodal depot. The 2018 documentary The Area tells a story that’s well known […]
Read more“Becoming and becoming and becoming”: Manthia Diawara on the porous borders of identity, nation, and art [Audio]
On February 2, 2019 The Block welcomed filmmaker and NYU Professor of Cinema Studies Manthia Diawara for a screening and conversation on his 2017 film An Opera of the World. A world-renowned theorist of cultural hybridity, Manthia Diawara left Mali at the age of 19, emigrating to France and later to the United States. He […]
Read moreIranian artist and filmmaker Mania Akbari brings personal new work to Block Cinema
Block Museum hosts Chicago premiere of A Moon for My Father (2019) At age 30, acclaimed artist and filmmaker Mania Akbari was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. This experience became the core of the Iranian director’s personal new work A Moon for My Father (2019), an essay film made in collaboration […]
Read more“I invest in myself and I make my films”: Jessie Maple on breaking boundaries and filmmaking [Audio]
Director Jessie Maple is a true trailblazer: the first African-American woman to join the International Photographers of Motion Picture & Television union, she also established a long-running venue for independent Black filmmakers in her own home. New York Women in Film and Television called Maple’s work “a forerunner of the independent, minority filmmaking that would cultivate directors […]
Read more“Something unexpected underneath the surface”: Sound Designer Gary Rydstrom on “The Elephant Man” [Audio]
On October 10, 2019 Block Cinema joined with Northwestern’s MA in Sound Arts and Industries to welcome Academy-Award-Winning Sound Designer Gary Rydstrom for a discussion of David ‘s Lynch’s 1980 classic The Elephant Man. Although noted for its evocative black and white cinematography and for John Hurt’s sensitive and powerful performance as Merrick, the film’s […]
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