Please join us!
CMCH Fall event schedule:
September
FRIDAY | SEPTEMBER 19 | 6 PM
NYU Cinema Studies, Michelson Theater
721 Broadway, 6th Floor
BOOK EVENT
THE DOCUMENTARY AUDIT
With Author Pooja Rangan (Amherst)
This launch event brings together three respondents who take up the book’s invitation to think documentary and sound alongside raciolinguistics, disability access activism, and legal forensics:
- Lakshmi Padmanabhan (Film Scholar, Northwestern University)
- Jordan Lord (Artist and Writer, Colorado College)
- LaCharles Ward (Curator and Scholar, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)
Together, they will explore how to refuse listening habits that discipline and punish, and how to reimagine accountability across media, law, and everyday life.
Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
Please email accessibility needs related to this event to cmc673@nyu.edu before Friday, September 5, 2025.
Co-sponsors: NYU Center for Media, Culture and History and CMCH’s World Records Journal, Columbia University Press, Amherst College, NYU Center for Disability Studies, and NYU Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies.
Event is free and open to the public but RSVP (in-person or zoom) is required. NYU ID or photo ID for non-NYU attendees required upon entry.
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FRIDAY | SEPTEMBER 26 | 5 PM
Department of Anthropology
25 Waverly Place, Kriser Theater, Ground Floor
SCREENING/DISCUSSION
PLEASE HOLD
With Filmmaker Alexandra Juhasz (Brooklyn College)
Register for In-Person Event
Please Hold (2025, Director: Alexandra Juhasz) is an experimental documentary engaging with decades of activist media, two death bed videos, and the wisdom of many living “AIDS workers,” as we all sit together in one (changing) format, video—VHS, hi-8, digital, Zoom—to address these and other questions. Post-screening discussion with director Alexandra Juhasz (Distinguished Professor of Film, Brooklyn College) and Pato Hebert (Associate Chair and Arts Professor, Tisch School of the Art’s Department of Art & Public Policy).
Co-sponsors: Cinema Studies; Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.
Event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Event registration is required. NYU ID or photo ID for non-NYU attendees required upon entry.
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October
THURSDAY | OCTOBER 9 | 5 PM
Department of Anthropology
25 Waverly Place, Kriser Theater, Ground Floor
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY COLLOQUIA
EXCITED DELIRIUM: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease
Lecture by AISHA BELISO DE JÉSUS (Princeton University)
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WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 15 | 6 PM
Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute
20 Cooper Square, 7th Floor Commons
Screening/Discussion
UNION (100 MINS, 2024, DIRS: STEPHEN MAING, BRETT STORY)
Up against one of the most powerful companies on the planet, a group of Amazon workers embark on an unprecedented campaign to unionize their warehouse in Staten Island, New York. Post screening discussion with filmmakers Stephen Maing and Brett Story, in conversation with Chenjerai Kumanyika (Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute). To attend, please bring your NYU ID or non-NYU photo ID. Reception follows event.
Co-sponsors: Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, News & Documentary Program; Cinema Studies.
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THURSDAY | OCTOBER 16 | 2 PM
Espacio de Culturas @KJCC
53 Washington Square South
Screening/Discussion
MALNI – Towards The Ocean, Towards The Shore (80 MINS, 2020, DIR: SKY HOPINKA)
A poetic, experimental feature circling the origin of the death myth from the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, the film follows two people as they wander through their surrounding nature, the spirit world, and something much deeper inside. Conversation follows screening with Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) and Iñupiaq filmmaker, Andrew Okpeaha MacLean (NYU Graduate Film, Film & TV).
Co-Sponsors: NYU Undergraduate Film & Television; NYU Center For Collaborative Indigenous Research With Communities And Lands (CIRCL); and the NYU Center For Multicultural Education And Programs (CMEP).
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FRIDAY | OCTOBER 24 | 5 PM
Department of Anthropology
25 Waverly Place, Kriser Theater, Ground Floor
Screening/Discussion
PAINT ME A ROAD OUT OF HERE (90 MINS, DIR: CATHERINE GUND)
The documentary traverses a 50-year journey of women at Rikers Jail, and a painting that leads the way out. Paint Me a Road Out of Here uncovers the whitewashed history of acclaimed artist Faith Ringgold’s masterpiece “For the Women’s House”, and its journey from Rikers to the Brooklyn Museum, a true parable for a world without mass incarceration. Post-screening discussion with Leah Faria (Director of Community Liaisons, Women’s Community Justice Association) and Karen Thomas (Formerly Incarcerated Artist and Domestic Violence Reform Advocate).
Co-sponsors: NYU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Prison Education Program (PEP); Center for Black Visual Culture at the Institute for African American Affairs; Department of Anthropology.
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WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 29 | 5 PM
Center for Religion and Media
14A Washington Mews
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY COLLOQUIA
WHEN WE ALL GET TO HEAVEN, ON AIDS+ RELIGION
When We All Get to Heaven is a documentary project that tells the story of one of the fi rst gay-positive churches, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, and how it faced the personal, social, and political trials of the AIDS epidemic, including the deaths of 500 of its members. Discussion with scholar and member of the project’s founding team, Lynne Gerber.
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November
FRIDAY | NOVEMBER 7 | 6 PM
NYU Cinema Studies, Michelson Theater
721 Broadway, 6th Floor
CINEMA STUDIES FRIDAY NIGHT SCREENING SERIES
TOWARDS A BLACK TESTIMONY
Screening and discussion of Towards A Black Testimony: Prayer/Protest/Peace (Languid Hands, 2019, 34 min). Borrowing its subtitle from We Insist!, the 1960 jazz album by drummer Max Roach and vocalist Abbey Lincoln, the film weaves texts, voices, archival footage and contemporary imagery into a collective portrait of Black defiance. Post-screening conversation with Rabz Lansiquot (of the artistic and curatorial duo, Languid Hands), Filmmaker Christopher Harris, writer/filmmaker Yasmina Price, and curator LaCharles Ward (Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History).
Co-presented by CMCH’S WORLD RECORDS
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MONDAY | NOVEMBER 10 | 5 PM
Center for Religion and Media
14A Washington Mews
BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY: Living in a Wordless World (2025, Duke University Press)
Beautiful Mystery explores what it means to be a person in the spaces between what we can and cannot say. How can we fight to care for our loved ones when they lack the language to fight for themselves, written from the author’s perspective on her own family’s experience. Featuring a discussion with the author, anthropologst Danilyn Rutherford (President, Wenner Gren Foundation)
Co-Sponsors: NYU Department of Anthropology (Colloquia Series); Center for Disability Studies; Center for Religion and Media.
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December
THURSDAY | DECEMBER 4 | 5 PM
Department of Anthropology
25 Waverly Place, Kriser Theater, Ground Floor
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY COLLOQUIA
THE BIOLOGY OF IN/DIGNITY: Workplace Democracy and Microbial Ecology in American Slaughterhouses
Lecture by ALEX BLANCHETTE (Tufts University)