Documentary Voices 2022
Documentary Voices 2022
January 26–April 20, 2022
Our annual series features an international array of recent and historical documentaries and nonfiction films.
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The Washing Society
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Phases of Matter
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Collective
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The Two Sights
- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
Prism
Rosine Mbakam, Eléonore Yameogo, An van. Dienderen
Belgium, 2021Wednesday, January 26 7 PMView DetailsA prismatic inquiry into how skin color is seen on screen, this provocative essay film asks whether technology consciously or unconsciously orients itself to depicting white skin as the norm.
499
Rodrigo Reyes
Mexico, 2021Wednesday, February 2 7 PMRodrigo Reyes in PersonView DetailsIn this “truly brilliant accomplishment of unconventional storytelling” (Carlos Aguilar), a conquistador inexplicably finds himself in Mexico, 499 years after conquering Tenochtitlán with Hernán Cortez’s army in 1521. He retraces their original journey across Mexico, a reluctant witness to the ongoing legacy of Spanish conquest.
Surname Viet Given Name Nam
Trinh T. Minh-ha
United States, 1989BAMPFA Preservation
Wednesday, February 9 7 PMLecture by Trinh T. Minh-haView DetailsThe history of modern Vietnam and the struggles of its women provide the foundation for this “keenly intelligent, sensuously multilayered” documentary (Stuart Klawans, The Nation). Director Trinh T. Minh-ha gives the fifth Les Blank Lecture prior to the screening.
The Two Sights
Joshua Bonnetta
Canada, United Kingdom, 2020Wednesday, February 16 7 PMView DetailsIn an “eerie and hypnotic” experimental evocation of the gift of second sight, Joshua Bonnetta infused the landscape of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides with otherworldly tales and meanings (Justine Smith, POV).
Phases of Matter
Deniz Tortum
Turkey, 2020Wednesday, February 23 7 PMErnst Karel in PersonView Details“A human, curious look at a place where life and death, levity and severity, poetry and confrontation go side by side,” Phases of Matter presents the Istanbul hospital where Deniz Tortum’s father worked for thirty years (Rotterdam International Film Festival).
In Comparison
Harun Farocki
Germany, Austria, 2009Wednesday, March 2 7 PMDomietta Torlasco in PersonView DetailsFarocki’s In Comparison considers the brick, that foundational unit of construction, as object, metaphor, and product of labor. With Domietta Torlasco’s Garfield Park, USA and Deniz Tortum and Kathryn Hamilton’s Our Ark, two short essay films.
Chinese Portrait
Wang Xiaoshuai
China, 2018Wednesday, March 9 7 PMIntroduced by Andrew F. JonesView DetailsRoughly sixty carefully composed shots of citizens and their environments, recorded over ten years across China, comprise this formal masterpiece, a photo album of an entire nation’s decade. From the director of Beijing Bicycle.
Mr. Bachmann and His Class
Maria Speth
Germany, 2021Wednesday, March 16 7 PMView DetailsA German schoolteacher welcomes a class of students from twelve different nations in this “affectionate and inspiring portrait of an affectionate and inspiring man” (Variety).
The Washing Society
Lizzie Olesker, Lynne Sachs
United States, 2018Wednesday, April 6 7 PMLes Blank Lecture by Lynne SachsView DetailsOlesker and Sachs fold the history of labor and immigration into this intimate chronicle of the disappearing public space of the neighborhood laundromat. With Sachs’s And Then We Marched and E•pis•to•lar•y: Letter to Jean Vigo.
The Short Documentary Films of Sara Gómez
New Restorations
Susan Lord will give a free lecture on the practices of the Vulnerable Media Lab Thursday, April 14.
Wednesday, April 13 7 PMIntroduced by Susan LordView DetailsGómez was one of the most inventive filmmakers of postrevolutionary Cuban cinema. Her recently restored films look at the complexities of the Caribbean island’s social, political, and economic transformation.
The Vulnerable Media Lab: ecologies, economies, and materialities
Free Admission!
Susan Lord will introduce a program of Sara Gómez’s films, preserved by the Vulnerable Media Lab, on Wednesday, April 13.
Thursday, April 14 5 PMLecture by Susan LordView DetailsSusan Lord presents a lecture on the practices of the Vulnerable Media Lab, which develops methods and processes to ensure culturally diverse “born digital” media history is preserved and made available according to culturally specific and ethically driven forms of access.
Collective
Alexander Nanau
Romania, Luxembourg, 2019Wednesday, April 20 7 PMCătălin Tolontan and David Barstow in ConversationView DetailsA shattering exposé of systemic corruption, this documentary about the aftermath of a Bucharest nightclub fire “doesn’t just open your eyes but tears you apart by exposing a moral rift with resonance far beyond the film’s home country” (Variety).