Committed Cinema: John Gianvito and Paul Chan

9/24/13 to 10/23/13

We open our new ongoing series Committed Cinema with John Gianvito and Paul Chan, filmmakers whose works arise out of political conviction and aesthetic innovation to explore vital and urgent issues of our times.

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Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Films

From Baghdad to Badlands
- Wednesday, October 23 7 pm
Paul Chan (U.S., 2010–13). Paul Chan in person. Introduced by Apsara DiQuinzio. Chan's video essay on Iraq just prior to the American invasion, plus other projects by the artist/activist, including his new experimental press Badlands Unlimited. (90 mins)
Waiting for Godot and Beyond
- Tuesday, October 22 7 pm
Paul Chan (U.S., 2005–10). Paul Chan and Ted Purves in conversation. Documentation of artist/activist Paul Chan's staging of Waiting for Godot in Katrina-devastated New Orleans, plus videos exploring the state of America, post-9/11. (90 mins, plus conversation)
Profit motive and the whispering wind
- Wednesday, September 25 7 pm
John Gianvito (U.S., 2007). John Gianvito in person. A minimalist memorial to America's radicals and freethinkers, inspired by Howard Zinn. (58 mins)
Far From Afghanistan
- Tuesday, September 24 7:00 pm
John Gianvito, Jon Jost, Soon-Mi Yoo, Minda Martin, Travis Wilkerson (U.S./Afghanistan, 2012). John Gianvito and Jeffrey Skoller in conversation. An omnibus film by five politically committed filmmakers focusing on the impact of the war in Afghanistan. (129 mins, plus conversation)

Committed Cinema: John Gianvito and Paul Chan

9/24/13 to 10/23/13

We are pleased to announce a new ongoing series, Committed Cinema, which will feature artists whose films and videos arise out of political conviction and aesthetic innovation to explore vital and urgent issues of our times. They provide us with a cinema that is thought provoking and intelligent, often opinionated, and always undaunted in its inquiry. If cinema can create a desire for another reality, these films foster an aspiration for a more just and humanitarian one.

We open our series with John Gianvito, a filmmaker and curator living and teaching in the Boston area, who has long created politically engaged cinema. He has made films about the Gulf and Afghanistan Wars and toxic pollution from military bases in the Philippines, as well as a chronicle of American progressives. He has championed a cinema that matters, that, in his words, “connected me more profoundly to this existence that enmeshes us,” against what...

Our second guest, Paul Chan, defies easy categorization. He has commented, “I think that art can be any number of things at once, and they can all be contradictory.” A New York–based activist artist, Chan exhibits his videos, animations, and other media internationally in cinemas and galleries; founded a press that primarily publishes artists' writings and writings on art in digital and paper forms; and produced a site-specific theatrical production in New Orleans. Always surprising, Chan is drawn to situations that are confusing and perverse, and to making art that disrupts the order of things.

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Support for Committed Cinema has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts; it is presented in conjunction with a course taught by Jeffrey Skoller at UC Berkeley.

Committed Cinema: John Gianvito and Paul Chan

9/24/13 to 10/23/13

Past Films

From Baghdad to Badlands

Waiting for Godot and Beyond

Profit motive and the whispering wind

Far From Afghanistan