INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM FIVE
Friday, November 10 at 7:45pm Films by: Amy Halpern / Nour Ouayda / Maryam Tafakory / Kevin Jerome Everson / Forough Farrokhzad
The Capitol Theatre, 121 University Ave. W, Windsor
Pay What You Like
Unowned Luxuries #3 (2020)
Amy Halpern
Unowned Luxuries #3, Amy Halpern, USA, 16mm, 3 min, 2020
The Unowned Luxuries films are about possession through the eyes. Based on the childhood perception (attributed to me as a five-year-old by my father) that “to see is to touch with the eyes,” these films propose a less toxic means of ownership. Actual ownership is overrated, as a desire and as a goal.
Image credits: unless otherwise noted all artworks, portraits and stills courtesy of David Lebrun © the estate of Amy Halpern.
About Amy Halpern
Amy Halpern (1953–2022). 40+ films from 1972–2022; major retrospectives at venues including Los Angeles Film Forum, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico. Co-founder of New York Collective for Living Cinema (1972–82) and Los Angeles Independent Film Oasis (1975–80). Frequent collaborator on projects with filmmakers such as Pat O’Neill, Charles Burnett, Ken Jacobs, David Lebrun, and others.
The Secret Garden (2023)
Nour Ouayda
The Secret Garden, Nour Ouayda, Canada/Lebanon, 16mm > digital, 27 min, 2023
The inhabitants of a city awake one morning to find that never-before-seen trees, plants, and flowers have suddenly erupted throughout the streets and in the squares. Strange and mysterious events start taking place as Camelia and Nahla investigate the origins of these new and peculiar organisms.
Image credits: unless otherwise noted all artworks, portraits and stills courtesy of the artist © Nour Ouayda.
About Nour Ouayda
Nour Ouayda (1991). Five films since 2019; screenings at venues including CPH:DOX Dokumentar Filmfestival, Cinéma du réel, Viennale, Shasha Movies, FIDMarseille, Beirut Art Center, Austrian Film Museum, Cinémathèque québécois, Toronto Arab Film Festival, and Documenta Madrid. Deputy Director of Metropolis Cinema Association (Beirut); co-editor of the Montréal-based online film journal Hors Champ. Lives in Beirut, Lebanon and Montréal, Québec.
Mast-del (2023)
Maryam Tafakory
Mast-del, Maryam Tafakory, Iran/England, digital, 17 min, 2023
Two women lie together in bed. As the wind bashes against the window, one recalls a past date to the cinema. The narrated scene cannot be conveyed through images. Layers of found and original footage are superimposed to fill in some of the cracks, the deletions, the limits of representation. A love song that would never pass through the censors, Mast-del is about forbidden bodies and desires inside and outside post-revolution Iranian cinema.
Image credits: unless otherwise noted all artworks, portraits and stills courtesy of the artist © Maryam Tafakory.
About Maryam Tafakory
Maryam Tafakory (1987). 10+ films since 2014; screenings at venues including Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Locarno Film Festival, Museum of the Moving Image, Toronto International Film Festival, and New York Film Festival. Tiger Short Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam (2018), two Aesthetica Emerging Art Prizes (2017 and 2019), Flaherty/Colgate Distinguished Global Filmmaker in Residence (2019), MacDowell Fellow (2022). Lives in Shiraz, Iran and London, England.
boyd v. denton (2023)
Kevin Jerome Everson
boyd v. denton, Kevin Jerome Everson, USA, 16mm > digital, 3 min, 2023
Boyd v. Denton is the name of the landmark case that closed the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio in 1990.
Image credits: unless otherwise noted all artworks, portraits and stills courtesy of trilobite-arts DAC and Picture Palace Pictures © Kevin Jerome Everson.
Kevin Jerome Everson
Kevin Jerome Everson portrait by Tom Daly
Kevin Jerome Everson (1965). 200+ films since 1997; extensive screenings at major festivals worldwide; retrospectives at Centre Pompidou (2019), Harvard Film Archive (2018), Tate Modern (2017), Media City Film Festival, and Whitney Museum of American Art (2011). Herb Alpert Award (2012), Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities (2019), Berlin Prize (2020). MCFF has screened more than 50 films by Everson since 2009. MCFF Mobile Frames Filmmaker-in-Residence (2014). Lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The House Is Black (1962)
Forough Farrokhzad
The House Is Black, Forough Farrokhzad, Iran, 35mm > digital, 22 min, 1962
The only film directed by trailblazing feminist Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad finds unexpected grace where few would think to look: a leprosarium whose inhabitants live, worship, learn, play, and celebrate in a self-contained community cut off from the rest of the world. Through ruminative voiceover narration drawn from the Old Testament, the Koran, and the filmmaker’s own poetry, and unflinching images that refuse to look away from physical difference, Farrokhzad creates a profoundly empathetic portrait of those cast off by society—a face-to-face encounter with the humanity behind the disease. A key forerunner of the Iranian New Wave, The House Is Black is a triumph of transcendent lyricism from a visionary artist whose influence is only beginning to be fully appreciated.—Janus Films
Image credits: unless otherwise noted all artworks, portraits and stills courtesy of Cineteca di Bologna and Janus Films © the estate of Forough Farrokhzad.
About Forough Farrokhzad
Forough Farrokhzad (1934–1967). One of Iran’s most significant modern poets, with multiple volumes published in her lifetime, including Reborn (1964). The House Is Black was the only film she directed in her short life before her untimely death in a car accident; the film won the Grand Prix from the International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (1964). Farrokhzad’s poetry was banned in Iran for more than two decades after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Program Partners
This program is co-presented with Art Windsor Essex, Mothlight Microcinema, and Canyon Cinema.
