OUT FROM UNDER explores labor, environment, spirituality, and exile through films and videos that are keenly interested in the capacious concept of “the underground.” Densely layered, these subterranean and submarine spaces have prompted us to consider intersecting themes, including: the underground/undocumented/unacknowledged labor of immigrants, women, and people of color; the sunken spaces of the Global South, including the Southern United States, territorialized and devalued as ‘below’ or ‘behind’ the rest of the world; and finally, the possibility of the underground as a space of confinement as well as liberation. A supple space tense with imaginative play, alternative world-making, disruptive actions, displacement as well as containment, the earth and sea below serve as both oppressive enclosures and radical openings, products of and unfettered from the order imposed on regulated life above ground.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

For program details, synopses, and filmmaker bios click on the program name.

OPENING NIGHT
A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL
Monday, October 2, 2017, 7 pm
Michelle Parkerson & Ada Gay Griffin in person

Michelle Parkerson & Ada Gay Griffin A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL: THE LIFE AND WORK OF AUDRE LORDE, 1996, 90 min., digital

This program is co-sponsored by Third World Newsreel.

MIGRATION
Monday, October 16, 2017, 7 pm
Kimi Takesue and Terron Jones in person

Terron Jones IBRAHIM, 2017, 19 min., digital
Eli Zwimpfer SHIPS PASSING IN THE NIGHT, 2015, 12 min., DCP
Jenna Bass THE TUNNEL, 2010, 25 min., digital
Kimi Takesue THAT WHICH ONCE WAS, 2011, 20 min., digital
Michael MacGarry SEA OF ASH, 2015, 15 min., digital

3,000 NIGHTS
Monday, October 30, 2017, 7 pm
Mai Masri in person.

Mai Masri 3,000 NIGHTS, 2017, 103 min., DCP

In collaboration with Colgate University’s Global Filmmaker Initiative.

AN OPERA OF THE WORLD
Monday, November 13, 2017, 7 pm
Manthia Diawara in person

Manthia Diawara AN OPERA OF THE WORLD, 2017, 70 min., DCP

DEATH
Monday, November 27, 2017, 7 pm
Terence Nance, Frances Bodomo, Yung Chang, and Mohamed Echkouna in person

Terence Nance UNIVITELLEN, 2016. 15 min. digital
Frances Bodomo EVERYBODY DIES, 2016, 10 min., digital
Yung Chang GATEKEEPER, 2016, 40 min., digital
Mohamed Echkouna طريق الأمل (Trail of Hope), 2016, 15 min., digital
Vasco Reis Ruivo HOJE, O SILÊNCIO (TODAY, THE SILENCE), 2016, 9 min., digital

WATER
Monday, December 11, 2017, 7 pm
Torkwase Dyson, Darius Clark Monroe in person

Terence Nance SWIMMING IN YOUR SKIN AGAIN, 2015, 22 min., digital
Kevin Jerome Everson AQUARIUS, 2003, 1:30 min., digital
Kevin Jerome Everson HALF ON, HALF OFF, 2011, 3:36 min., digital
Kevin Jerome Everson FIFTEEN AN HOUR, 2011, 6 min., digital
Nijla Mu’min DELUGE, 2014, 13 min., digital
Torkwase Dyson THE COLOR OF CRUDE, Ongoing, 3 min., digital
Kahlil Joseph UNTIL THE QUIET COMES, 2013, 3:56 min., digital
Akosua Adoma Owusu DREXCIYA, 2010, 12 min., digital
Darius Clark Monroe TWO CITIES, 2015, 13 min., DCP

PROGRAMMERS: Maori Karmael Holmes and Charlotte Ickes

Maori Karmael Holmes is founder of the BlackStar Film Festival (2012-present) and Director of Public Engagement at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. She has organized programs in film and performance at ICA, Barnes Foundation, Asian Arts Initiative, Painted Bride Art Center, Scribe Video Center, International House, and Swarthmore College. Other projects include KinoWatt (2011-2012, co-curated with Sara Zia Ebrahimi) and Black Lily Film & Music Festival for Women (2006-2010). Maori is guest programmer for Scribe Video Center’s spring 2017 season. Her film and video works have screened internationally and throughout the US, including her feature documentary Scene Not Heard: Women in Philadelphia Hip-Hop (2006). She was a fellow at the 60th Flaherty Film Seminar and is a 2016 Ford Foundation Rockwood JustFilms Fellow. Maori received her MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University.

Charlotte Ickes is an art historian, curator, and current Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Postdoctoral Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Charlotte has held fellowship appointments at the Whitney Independent Study Program, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Philadelphia. She has curated exhibitions at the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT), Slought (Philadelphia, PA, co-curated with Iggy Cortez), and ICA (Philadelphia, PA), and organized public programs at the Studio Museum in Harlem (New York, NY), Slought, and ICA. Her scholarship has appeared in American Art and Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory. Charlotte received her BA from Yale University and PhD in History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania.

www.flahertyseminar.org