On the Battlefield (2024)
Little Egypt Collective
On the Battlefield, Little Egypt Collective, USA, 16mm > digital, 16.5 min, 2024
In the Southern Illinois region of Little Egypt, a sound recordist revisits the flat fields where once stood Pyramid Courts—the housing projects that formed the heart of the Black community of his hometown, Cairo. His mic gathers sonic ephemera of past, present, and future within the grasses, trees, and skies. Kids play, birds flock, a grandmother and granddaughter burn sage for protection from evil spirits, and an official who oversaw the projects’ closing reflects on its psychic toll. Throughout, a 1970 private release LP by the United Front of Cairo (a Black power movement led by Rev. Dr. Charles Koen) guides the sound recordist, and us, on a search for connections across struggles for liberation, near and far. On the Battlefield is an overture celebrating the joy and power of Cairo, a town famous for confluences and collisions: between the North and South, the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers, and Black liberation and white supremacy. We offer an aperture of encounter, resistance, and inspiration, and invite audiences into these muddy histories and potent spaces.
Streaming Details
This film is available to stream globally.
Program Partners
This film is co-presented with the Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago.
Image credits: all artworks, portraits, and stills courtesy the artists © Little Egypt Collective.
About the artists
Little Egypt Collective (USA) is a multiracial, multigenerational group of artists from Little Egypt in Southern Illinois and Chicago. They approach filmmaking as a mode of collective world-building and a means of investigating social conditions of inequality in Southern Illinois, a region historically marked by economic and racial injustices. They utilize speculative fiction and conceptual playfulness to generate new expressions of community spirit and resistance, and to participate in Cairo’s resurgence. On the Battlefield, directed by collective members Theresa Delsoin, Lisa Marie Malloy, JP Sniadecki, and Ray Whitaker, is the collective’s first work; it has screened internationally at venues including Cinéma du Réel, Taiwan International Documentary Festival, and DC/DOX. CW from top left: JP Sniadecki is a filmmaker who works between China and the USA; he is also a professor in the Radio, TV, and Film Department of Northwestern University. Theresa Delsoin is an author, teacher, and community leader with the Southern Illinois NAACP chapter; On the Battlefield is her first film. Lisa Marie Malloy is an artist and filmmaker whose work illuminates connections across generations and between species; she leads filmmaking workshops with youth and elders. Ray Whitaker is an artist and entrepreneur from Cairo; he focuses his efforts on training youth in Cairo to unlock their artistic potential through film and acting workshops.