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Zoom-In 2020


  • The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room (map)

Friday, February 7, 10 am–10 pm
Saturday February 8, 10 am–9:30 pm
Sunday, February 9, 10:30 am–5:45 pm

Zoom-In is a screening series and thesis showcase presented by the MA Film and Media Studies class of 2020. The third annual Zoom-In event returned to Lenfest Center for the Arts in Manhattanville February 7-9. This year, the event included film screenings, presentations, discussion panels, and post-screening Q&A’s with contributions from artists at the Columbia School of the Arts. The program continues to investigate classical problems for our field (documentary, montage, adaptation) as well as issues emerging from today’s media ecologies. Topics included queer British cinema, silent film serial queens, Portuguese folklore festivals, dashcam footage, folk horror, and the mediation of uprisings from the Russian revolution to the Hong Kong Protests to the Arab Spring. 

Films Selected by Reem AlkaabiDaniel AufmannAaron Dowdy, Kira LiKyna McClenaghanT. A. MorrisWilliam PlotnickWill TamuraYumo YanZijing YuMuxin Zhang, and Ian Zhou. With presentations by Karlee Rodrigues and Drew Powell and an original film by Cherie Chan. 

Organized by the MA Film and Media Studies Class of 2020. Co-sponsored by the Film & Media Studies MA program and the Interdisciplinary Arts Council.

Featured the work of student artists Lau WaiKathryn Ann Miller, and Raelis Vasquez, piano accompaniment by Gavin Goodrich, and a poetry reading by Nada Faris

Don’t forget to take a look through our viewfinders at Zoom-In information tables located in the lobbies of Lenfest Center for the Arts and Dodge Hall!

Full Schedule:

Day 1: Friday, February 7

Module 1: “Female Stardom”

10:00 AM  Welcome and Introduction to Zoom-In by Professor Ron Gregg

10:15 AM  Introduction by Daniel Aufmann: “Serial Queen Stardom and ‘Fearless Femininity’”

10:30 AM  Screening: Promotional Reel for Hands Up! (dir. James W. Horne, 1918)
*Film courtesy of the National Film Preservation Foundation and the UCLA Film & Television Archive

10:40 AM  Screening: Chapter 3 of House of Hate (dir. George B Seitz, 1918) |
*Film courtesy of The Serial Squadron Cinema Cliffhanger Archive

11:10 AM  Screening: Episode 26 of Hazards of Helen (dir. J.P McGowan and Helen Holmes, 1914) 
*Film courtesy of the Library of Congress and the National Film Preservation Foundation 

11:25 AM  Screening: Episode 13 of The Lightning Raider (dir. George B Seitz, 1919)
*35 mm film print courtesy of The Library of Congress   
*This program will have piano accompaniment by Gavin Goodrich​.

11:40 AM  Introduction by Muxin Zhang: “‘Cosmopolitan’ Vamps in Early Hollywood”

11:50 AM  Screening: A Fool There Was (dir. Frank Powell, 1915)
*16mm film print courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Film Archive
*With piano accompaniment by Gavin Goodrich. 

1:10 PM  “Understanding Early Female Stardom through Archival Research and Publicity”: A Dialogue between Daniel Aufmann and Muxin Zhang 

1:30 PM  Break

Module 2: “Modernization throughout Chinese Cinema Historiography”

2:30 PM  Introduction by Ian Zhou: “Revisiting 1938-1945 Shanghai Cinema: (Il)legitimacy of the Nation”

2:45 PM  Screening: Mulan Joins the Army (dir. Wancang Bu, 1939)

4:15 PM  Break

4:45 PM  Introduction by Yumo Yan: "Modernization in Chinese Film Language between 1979-1981 - History, Theory, Practice"

5:00 PM  Sha Ou (dir. Nuanxin Zhang, 1981)

6:30 PM  “Modernization throughout Chinese Cinema Historiography”: A Dialogue between Ian Zhou and Yumo Yan

6:45 PM  Break

Module 3: “The Spirit of Adaptation”

7:45 PM  Presentation by T. A. Morris: “Modernist Fidelity in Adaptation through the Polish School” 

8:10 PM  Screening: Austeria (dir. Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1982) 
*Film courtesy of Film Studio Kadr
10:00 PM  End of Program

Day 2: Saturday, February 8 

Module 4: “Revolutionary Tactics from Arab Spring to Hong Kong”

10:00 AM  Introduction by Reem Alkaabi: “The Antigone Figure in Arab Cinema”

10:15 AM  Poetry Reading: “The Task of the Translator of Antigone” (Anne Carson, 2015)
*Poem read by Nada Faris

10:20 AM  Screening: Amal (dir. Mohamed Saim, 2017) 

11:50 AM  Introduction by Cherie Chan to her film

12:00 PM  Screening: Be Water (dir. Cherie Chan, 2019) 

12:30 AM  Break

Module 5: “Genre, Folklore, and Curation”

1:30 PM  Introduction by Drew Powell: “The Genre, Folklore, and Curation of Four Thesis Projects”

1:40 PM  Presentation by Karlee Rodrigues: “Hollywood Blockbusters in Portuguese Folklore Festivals”

2:10 PM  Introduction by William Plotnick: “On the Fringes of Cinema Novo: Roberto Farias’s Selva Trágica (1963)”

2:20 PM  Screening: Selva Trágica (dir. Roberto Farias, 1963)
*Film courtesy of Produções Cinematográficas R. F. Farias
*This screening is co-sponsored by Cinema Tropical. 

4:00 PM  Break

4:30 PM  Introduction by Kyna McClenaghan: “The Politics of Gender and Historiography in Folk Horror”

4:40 PM  Screening: Penda’s Fen (dir. Alan Clarke, 1974)

6:15 PM  “Genre, Folklore, and Curation in National Contexts”: A Panel Discussion with Karlee Rodrigues, William Plotnick, Kyna McClenaghan, and Drew Powell

6:45 PM  Break 

Module 6: “Onscreen British Queer Identity in the 2010s”

7:45 PM  Introduction by Kira Li: “In the Forests: Solitude, Subjectivity and Sexuality in Contemporary British Queer Representation”

8:10 PM  Screenings: Selected episodes of Queers (dir. Mark Gatiss, 2017)

Episode 1: “The Man on the Platform” 

Episode 4: “Missing Alice”

Episode 8: “Something Borrowed”

9:20 PM  End of Program

Day 3: Sunday, February 9

Module 7: “Montage Then and Now”

10:30 AM  Introduction by Zijing Yu: “Intertitles on the Cusp of Soviet Sound Cinema”

10:45 AM  Screening: Enthusiasm (dir. Dziga Vertov, 1930) 
*16 mm film print courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Film Archive 

12:00 PM  Break

1:00 PM  Introduction by Will Tamura: “Montage in Digital Compilations”

1:10 PM  Screening: The Road Movie (dir. Dimitrii Kalashnikov, 2016)
*Film courtesy of Oscilloscope Films

2:20 PM  “Eisenstein & Montage in Old and New Media”: A Dialogue between Zijing Yu and Will Tamura 

2:45 PM  Break

Module 8 “Documentary Fictions”

3:15 PM  Introduction by Aaron Dowdy: “Unmade Cinema, or About a Film to Be Made”

3:30 PM  Screening: Fernand Deligny: About a Film to Be Made/À propos d’un film à faire (Renaud Victor, 1989) 

5:15 PM  Q&A with Aaron Dowdy

5:45 PM  End of Program

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January 31

Woman in Language

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February 13

Water, Sound, and Indigenous Film: Antonio and Piti