FRIDAY / MAY 12 / 6:30 PM
CANTOR FILM CENTER, THEATER 200
36 EAST 8TH STREET
DOCS ON THE EDGE: A Student Documentary Showcase from the 2016-2017 Video Production Seminar, Program in Culture & Media
PIXELATING HOLINESS
by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (Anthropology)
Icons, sacred religious art, are vital to Russian Orthodox religious practice and culture. Traditionally, icons are images of religious figures, such as the saints and Christ, which are hand painted by highly trained artists. In recent years, the method of producing icons has changed to include digitally produced icons. Father Jonah Campbell, an outgoing, spirited priest and family man based in Wayne, West Virginia is leading that change in the American landscape. This documentary wrestles with what happens when the sacred is transformed into megapixels, and ancient forms of religious art are brought into the digital age.
CHAINS OF CUSTODY
by Anisha Chadha (Anthropology)
Hundreds of thousands of rape kits have been abandoned and disregarded across the United States. Horrified to learn that her hometown was responsible for a large part of the backlog, filmmaker Anisha Chadha decides to go home to Detroit to inquire more deeply into what rape response in contemporary America looks like. In Chains of Custody she traces how rape kits are processed as they travel through the institutions that survivors contend with when reporting sexual assault.
ODE TO FAZIL’S
by Marcel Rosa-Salas (Anthropology)
In a worn-down tenement building on 8th avenue between 46th and 47th street once stood Fazil’s Studio — a rehearsal hall and haven for dance from across the globe. For filmmaker Marcel Rosa-Salas, the daughter of a dancer, Fazil’s was like her second home as a child. Ode to Fazil’s is a personal and collective portrait of this iconic monument in New York City dance history through the materials and memories that live on in the studio’s wake.
BACK TO ME
by Zeynep Sertbulut (Anthropology)
In the summer of 2016, following an ISIS airport bombing and a military coup in her home country, Turkish filmmaker Zeynep Sertbulut experienced a temporary psychotic episode for the first time. Now back at graduate school in New York City, she works to come to terms with her significant emotional detour as she tries to recover. Documenting various stages of her recovery, Back to Me is an exploration of identity and change in the midst of conflict as well as the relationships between political events, vulnerability, and personal trauma.
Presented by the Department of Anthropology, the Department
of Cinema Studies, and the Program in Culture and Media at
New York University