Medias Movements Migrations

Join us NOV 4th and 5th at San Francisco State University for a provocative line-up of filmmakers, researchers, VR, and discussion about all things nonfiction. We welcome keynote speakers scholar Hamid Naficy (Northwestern University), filmmaker Alex Rivera (The Infiltrators), and activist Viridiana Martinez (National Immigrant Youth Alliance).

Hamid Naficy is a leading authority in cultural studies of diaspora, exile, and postcolonial cinemas and media, and of Iranian and Middle Eastern cinemas and media. His areas of research and teaching include these topics as well as documentary and ethnographic cinemas. He has published nearly a dozen books (some award-winning) and scores of book chapters and journal articles. In addition, he has lectured widely, nationally and internationally, and his works have been cited and reprinted extensively and translated into many languages. Naficy has also produced many educational films and experimental videos and participated in major international film festivals, curated film series, and initiated the annual Iranian film festivals in Los Angeles in 1990 and in Houston in 1992.

Alex Rivera is a filmmaker who has been telling new, urgent, and visually adventurous Latino stories for more than twenty years. His first feature film, Sleep Dealer, won multiple awards at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival. Rivera’s second feature film, a documentary/scripted hybrid, The Infiltrators, won both the Audience Award and the Innovators Award in the NEXT section of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, and is currently being developed as a scripted series by Blumhouse Television. Rivera’s work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Open Society Institute, Creative Capital, and many others. Alex studied at Hampshire College, was the Rothschild Lecturer at Harvard University, and is currently a distinguished lecturer of media studies at Queens College.

Viridiana Martinez is the director of Alerta Migratoria. She has been an immigrant youth organizer since 2009. Through the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, she was instrumental in efforts that led to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012. Viridiana, also, infiltrated Broward Transitional Center to expose the injustices faced by immigrant detainees. In spite of limited funding and resources, she founded the first ever immigrant youth led organization in North Carolina. She has been organizing for years to stop countless deportations across the country. Viridiana believes that directly impacted people must be at the frontlines of any successful campaign. She is currently a DACA recipient and a consultant on issues of immigration.

Award-winning director Alex Rivera and activist Viridiana Martinez will also be present during a special screening of their film The Infiltrators (2019). Without warning, Claudio Rojas is detained by ICE officials outside his Florida home. He is transferred to the Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility used as a holding space for imminent deportations. Terrified of never seeing him again, Claudio’s family contacts the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), a group of activist Dreamers known for stopping deportations. Believing that no one is free as long as one is in detention, NIYA enlists Marco Saavedra to self-deport with the hopes of gaining access to the detention center and impeding Claudio’s expulsion. Once inside, Marco discovers a complex for-profit institution housing hundreds of multinational immigrants, all imprisoned without trial.

Check out the full schedule below and register today. Attendance is FREE.

PROVISIONAL PROGRAM

Monday, November 4th, 2019

Emerging Media Arcade - All day, both days

Richard Oaks Multi-Cultural Center

Azalia Muchransyah (University at Buffalo: Collaborative Work) "TAMU"

Meriam Salem (World Trust Educational Services) "Broken Into Language"

Aggie Ebrahimi (Georgia State University: VR Video) "How to tell a True Immigrant Story"

Tarek Bouraque (MFA Candidate, Hunter College: Two Channel Installation)"Ground Zero Peace" and "Driving Your Soul"

Jose Aguilar (Deportee: Spoken Word Manifesto) "The Unwanted Journey"

Vivian Lin (Voices of Women: Participatory Video Workshop Series) "Visualizing the Voices of Migrant Women Workers"

Erik Kramer, Vanessa Wong, Soumyaa Behrens, Wyatt Irmen (Single Channel Installation) "When a Tree Falls" Courtesy of the Global Museum & Documentary Film Institute

9:00 am: Coffee and Tea-All are welcome

9:30 - 10:45 am: Radical Movements in the Archive

Panel Chair: Aaron Kerner (School of Cinema SF State)

Morgan Morel (Preservation Manager, Bay Area Video Coalition): "Representation and Diversity in the Preservation Access Program"

Antonella Bonfanti (Director, Canyon Cinema): "Canyon Cinema a Film Art Collection for the Underground"

Michael Campos-Quinn (Interim Director, BAMPFA Film Library): "Preserving the Roots of Guerrilla Media: Top Value Television’s 1972 Convention Interventions."

11:00-12:00pm: Emergent Medias in Practice

Panel Chair: Meriam Salem (Program Associate World Trust Organizational Services)

Chris Boulton (University of Tampa): "Power Trip: a commentary on the evolution of pop science cinema and the nature of authorship itself."

Laurie Sumiye (University of Hawaii): "Preservation of Protected Sites Through Transmedia Place-Based Documentary Storytelling"

Jeanne Finley (California College of the Arts): "Journeys Beyond the Cosmodrome: questions of migration as an intimate and personal journey of multiple voices."

12:00-12:30pm: Lunch Break

12:30-2:10pm: Film Screening: The Infiltrators (2019)

Introduced by Alex Rivera and Viridiana Martinez

Without warning, Claudio Rojas is detained by ICE officials outside his Florida home. He is transferred to the Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility used as a holding space for imminent deportations. Terrified of never seeing him again, Claudio’s family contacts the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), a group of activist Dreamers known for stopping deportations. Believing that no one is free as long as one is in detention, NIYA enlists Marco Saavedra to self-deport with the hopes of gaining access to the detention center and impeding Claudio’s expulsion. Once inside, Marco discovers a complex for-profit institution housing hundreds of multinational immigrants, all imprisoned without trial.

Directed by Alex Rivera & Cristina Ibarra

2:15-3:15pm: FORUM: Filmmaking, Activism, and Undocumented Youth

Moderator: Elizabeth Ramirez-Soto (School of Cinema SF State)

Alex Rivera (Filmmaker, The Infiltrators)

Viridiana Martinez (Activist, National Immigrant Youth Alliance)

Norma Salcedo (AB 540 Dream Coordinator, Dream Resource Center at SF State)

3:30pm: Special Session: Accomplice Award

4:00 - 5:00pm Reception

Tuesday, November 5th 2019

Emerging Media Arcade - All day, both days

Richard Oaks Multi-Cultural Center

Azalia Muchransyah (University at Buffalo: Collaborative Work) "TAMU"

Meriam Salem (World Trust Educational Services) "Broken Into Language"

Aggie Ebrahimi (Georgia State University: VR Video) "How to tell a True Immigrant Story"

Tarek Bouraque (MFA Candidate, Hunter College: Two Channel Installation)"Ground Zero Peace" and "Driving Your Soul"

Jose Aguilar (Undocumented: Spoken Word Manifesto) "The Unwanted Journey"

Vivian Lin (Voices of Women: Participatory Video Workshop Series) "Visualizing the Voices of Migrant Women Workers"

Erik Kramer, Vanessa Wong, Soumyaa Behrens, Wyatt Irmen (Single Channel Installation) "When a Tree Falls" Courtesy of the Global Museum & Documentary Film Institute

9:00 am Coffee / Welcome

9:30-10:45am: Cinematic Migrations: Graduate Students Panel

Panel Chair: Steve Choe (School of Cinema SF State)

Tatiana Anoushian (MA School of Cinema SF State): "'You Call This a Film?': the Non-Films of Jafar Panahi"

Natalya Sharapova (MFA School of Cinema SF State): "Internal Exile: the Putin's Russia vs. Kirill Serebrennikov"

Jorge Delgadillo (MA School of Cinema SF State): "Documenting Reality Through Petzold’s Narratives"

Asali Echols (MFA School of Cinema SF State): "Fighting to Move: Resilience and Resistance through Martial Arts"

11:00-12:00pm: The Hour of the Furnaces, May 1968, and the Pesaro International Film Festival

This 3-person panel will explore the migration of a canonical, revolutionary documentary, from its clandestine inception in Argentina during the military dictatorship, to its final editing phase in Italy.

Panel Chair: Ana Luengo Palomino (Modern Languages & Literatures SF State)

Tomas Crowder-Taraborrelli (Soka University)

Laura E. Ruberto (Berkeley City College)

Kristi M. Wilson (Soka University)

12:00-12:30pm: Lunch Break

12:30-1:45pm: Diaspora Filmmakers from the Bay Area

Panel Chair: Valerie Soe (Asian American Studies SF State)

Daniel Chein (Independent Filmmaker): Sonsplitter-Work in Progress

Pallavi Somusetty (Chandi Films): Escaping Agra (2017)

Soumyaa Behrens (Documentary Film Institute SF State) & Persis Karim (Iranian Diaspora Studies SF State):We Are Here We've Always Been Here -Work in Progress

2:00-3:15pm: Studies in Form Through Transnational Film Practice

Panel Chair: Robert Keith Collins (American Indian Studies SF State)

Ouma Amadou (University of Rochester): " 'What Do you Expect on the Ocean?' : Plasticity, Migration, and Limitless Black Life in Mati Diop's Atlantiques (2009)"

Justine Pignato (Université de Montréal): " (Im)mobility and Movement in Syrian 'Emergency Documentary Cinema' (2011-)"

Ryan Watson (Misericordia University): "New Dimensions of Documentary Activism: Forensic Architecture in Palestine and Syria"

4:00-5:15pm KEYNOTE - Theorizing Multiplex Cinema: Plurality of Cinematic Forms and Filmmakers

Hamid Naficy (Northwestern University)

Hamid Naficy is a leading authority in cultural studies of diaspora, exile, and postcolonial cinemas and media, and of Iranian and Middle Eastern cinemas and media. His areas of research and teaching include these topics as well as documentary and ethnographic cinemas. He has published nearly a dozen books (some award-winning) and scores of book chapters and journal articles. In addition, he has lectured widely, nationally and internationally, and his works have been cited and reprinted extensively and translated into many languages. Naficy has also produced many educational films and experimental videos and participated in major international film festivals, curated film series, and initiated the annual Iranian film festivals in Los Angeles in 1990 and in Houston in 1992.

5:15-6:00pm Reception