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 more
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 […]
Read more
In November 2021, Block Cinema screened Property (1978) by filmmaker Penny Allen. In Property, Penny Allen turns her lens to the eccentric residents of a bohemian neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. The film, a critically under-seen gem of 1970s independent filmmaking, delivers an economic critique of urban renewal to warm, satirical effect. Property revels in the joy and […]
Read more
In Winter 2021 the Block Museum hosted a discussion between UK filmmaker Onyeka Igwe and Professor Bimbola Akinbola of the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. The conversation was presented as part of the Block Cinema program The Loose Ends of Empire: Unforgetting Colonialism a screening of experimental film and audio-visual works from the […]
Read more
This groundbreaking drama Majdhar (1984) was among the first to bring the inner lives and struggles of South Asian communities to popular audiences in the UK. On January 28, 2021 Block Cinema was proud to host a screening of the film followed by a discussion with Ahmed Alauddin Jamal, the co-founder of the legendary Retake […]
Read more
For many, London is an imaginary landscape, a composite of images that circulate in art, literature, and popular culture. On November 12, 2020 Block Cinema explored this landscape with Unreal City: Film Essays on London by Ayo Akingbade and Reece Auguiste a program of experimental essay films from the UK. The screening was followed by a […]
Read more
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 more
In November 2018 the Block Museum of Art welcomed documentarian PJ Raval for a conversation on his award-winning feature documentary Call Her Ganda. The film following the 2014 murder of Jennifer Laude, a transgender Filipina woman killed by an American Marine, and the struggle for justice waged by her family, friends, lawyers, and investigative journalist […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
At age 30, Iranian filmmaker Mania Akbari was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. A Moon For My Father (2019), an essay film made in collaboration with her partner, the British sculptor Douglas White, positions Akbari’s illness within layers of personal and national history. Rich in texture and astonishingly intimate, Akbari’s film […]
Read more