MATRIX Conversation: Jumana Manna and Nicolás Pereda

Nicolás Pereda joins MATRIX artist Jumana Manna for a conversation about her new film, Foragers (2022), and the resonances between their filmmaking practices.

Pereda, assistant professor of film and media at UC Berkeley, is a filmmaker whose work explores the everyday through fractured and elliptical narratives using fiction and documentary tools. His work has been the subject of numerous retrospectives worldwide, in venues including the Anthology Film Archive and TIFF Cinematheque. His films have also been featured in major international festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and Toronto, and exhibited in galleries and museums like the Reina Sofía in Madrid and Museum of Modern Art in New York. His latest film, Fauna, was screened at BAMPFA in late October. 

 For MATRIX 278, Manna, a Palestinian artist based in Berlin and Jerusalem, presents the installation version of her new feature film Foragers (2022), co-commissioned by BAMPFA. Her investigatory meditation into foraging for ‘akkoub and za’atar combines fiction and documentary to trace the entangled cultural and governmental significance of this cultural tradition and its legislation.