Center for Ethnographic Media Arts

LÁZARO AT NIGHT (2024) Dir. Nicolás Pereda

Lázaro at Night follows three friends in their early forties as they audition for a coveted film role. Amid the process, one of them interviews a former literature teacher whose voice transports us to their past—a time when literature offered them an escape, allowing them to dream and hope in ways the dull, unforgiving real world never could. As they reminisce, their deep friendship becomes tangled in an uneasy love triangle, blurring the lines between memory, desire, and reality.

Join us this Friday, April 11th at 7pm for a screening of LÁZARO AT NIGHT, alongside additional films by Nicolás Pereda.

In-person Q&A with Nicolás Pereda to follow the films.

DEAR CHANTAL (2021) Dir. Nicolás Pereda

A miniature homage to Chantal Akerman, conceived as a series of playfully impossible letters that respond to her inquiry about renting my sister’s home in Mexico City

Join us this Friday, April 11th at 7pm for a screening of DEAR CHANTAL, alongside additional films by Nicolás Pereda.

In-person Q&A with Nicolás Pereda to follow the films.

FLORA (2022) Dir. Nicolás Pereda.

A reflection on the nature of representation and the ongoing drug war in Mexico, Nicolás Pereda’s Flora revisits locations and scenes from the mainstream 2010 narco-comedy El Infierno, exploring the paradoxes of depicting narco-trafficking on film—its tendency both to romanticize and to obscure. To screen is both to project and to conceal.

Join us this Friday, April 11th at 7pm for a screening of FLORA, alongside additional films by Nicolás Pereda.

In-person Q&A with Nicolás Pereda to follow the films.

ATTENTION! Join us next Friday, 3/28 for a workshop with Ben Russell as part of CEMA’s Visiting Artist Series.

ATTENTION! is a practical workshop exploring perceptual re-engagement, one that seeks to re-orient the audiovisual attentions of its participants towards the present. Participants will be led in a series of walking and recording exercises that explore the possibilities of objective and subjective observation under the loose frames of “documentary” and / or “psychedelic ethnography.” This workshop draws its inspiration from sources as diverse as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Maryanne Amacher’s third ear compositions, LSD test subjects, hydrophone coral reef recordings, Jean Rouch’s idea of trance-cinema and more – all in the name of recognizing one’s own intuitive, cognitive and perceptual processes within the construction of the Here and Now.

GOOD LUCK (2017) Dir. Ben Russell

Filmed between a state-owned large-scale underground mine in the war-torn state of Serbia and an illegal mining collective in the tropical heat of Suriname, Good Luck is a visceral documentary portrait of hope and sacrifice in a time of global economic turmoil. Beginning with a 600 meter descent into the depths of the earth, Good Luck shines a flashlight onto the human face of labor in the time-warp’d working conditions of an underground state-owned mine in Serbia. The hiss of oxygen cuts through the diesel rumble, the walls of the office vibrate with explosions two levels below ; war-torn and half-forgotten, these miners’ physical struggle finds its mirror a continent away – in the tropical heat of an illegal Surinamese gold mine. The water pumps roar under the blinding sun ; silver liquid rolls across the hand of a Saramaccan Maroon as he adds mercury to dirt in a never-ending search for gold. Formed between dark and
light, cold and heat, North and South, Good Luck immerses its viewer in the precarious natural and social environments of two distinct labor groups so as to better understand the bonds that men share. In a time of global economic turmoil, here is the human foundation of capital, revealed.

JOIN US Thursday, 3/27 for a screening of GOOD LUCK followed by an in-person Q&A with Dir. Ben Russell.

Join us Friday, 2/21 at 3:00 pm for an Artist Talk given by Sky Hopinka.

Image from “Just A Soul Responding” by Sky Hopinka.

KICKING THE CLOUDS (2021): “This film is a reflection on descendants and ancestors, guided by a 50 year old audio recording of my grandmother learning the Pechanga language from her mother. After being given this tape by my mother I interviewed her and asked about it, and recorded her ruminations on their lives and her own. The footage is of our chosen home in Whatcom County, Washington, where my family still lives, far from our homelands in Southern California, yet a home nonetheless.”

We are excited to welcome SKY HOPINKA this Thursday 2/20 for a screening of a collection of his short films. Q&A to follow the films.

SUNFLOWER SIEGE ENGINE (2022): Moments of resistance are collapsed and woven together; from documentation of the Indigenous led occupation of Alcatraz, to the reclamation of Cahokia and the repatriation of the ancestors, to one’s reflections on their body as they exist in the world today, These are gestures that meditate on the carceral inception and nature of the reservation system, and where sovereignty and belligerence intersect and diverge.

Join us this Thursday, 2/20 at 6 p.m. for a screening of “Sunflower Siege Engine” and other short films by Sky Hopinka. In person Q&A with Sky Hopinka to follow the films.

Join us this Friday, Nov. 8th from 1:00-4:00pm for a Works-In-Progress screening and discussion led by Adam Piron.