Cinema Report

From hosting live cinema events in the auditorium to taking screenings online, 2019-2020 has been a year of experiment and growth for Block Cinema, both before and during the pandemic.

Our year began in the Fall with an experiment: to complement the Block’s presentation of Pop América: 1965-1975, Block Cinema hosted Ism Ism Ism, a touring retrospective of Latin American experimental cinema. For the first time, we organized these screenings of rare and astonishing films not only in the Block auditorium, but at community screening spaces throughout Chicago. Across the city and here in Evanston, we consistently brought in diverse and engaged audiences, positioning the Block as a driver of cultural dialogue and connection within and beyond our walls.

With this series, we inaugurated a year-long focus on global modernisms in cinema, an approach designed to complement the themes of the museum’s exhibitions. Working closely with the museum’s interdisciplinary graduate fellow, Simran Bhalla, we presented an ambitious series, Morning Will Come: Modernity in Indian Cinema, in the winter. This series, too, was the occasion for a number of firsts: supported Block Cinema’s first NEA grant, we hosted Chicagoland premieres of restorations of some of India, Iran, and Turkey’s greatest films to our screen; we were also fortunate to host the debut public program by the Shabistan Film Archive, an independent organization dedicated to preserving India’s endangered film history. Although the series was cut short by the pandemic, but we were able to present the final film, Badnam Basti, as our inaugural virtual screening. Considered India’s first film to explore gay themes, Badnam Basti had not been seen in decades until we discovered the film in a German archive. By sharing Badnam Basti online, we brought new visibility to a film once thought irretrievably lost; thanks to our work, the work is now the subject of a restoration effort by the Film Heritage Foundation.

Throughout the year, we demonstrated Block Cinema’s sustained commitment to students. Our successful move to remote programming allowed student filmmakers from the Young People’s Race, Power, and Technology project and the MFA in Documentary Media to share their work with the world. This year also saw Block Cinema demonstrate its greatest commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion to date. Of the 61 programs we organized for AY2019-2020 (including programs canceled due to COVID-19), fully half featured work by femme, trans, or nonbinary filmmakers; 42 of these programs represented works by filmmakers of color. This investment in diversity also informed our choices regarding introductions, Q&A participants, resource development, student workers, and beyond. These values continue to shape our curation and our practices, as we strive to create a program that is responsive to and reflective of our community, both at Northwestern–and, increasingly, globally.