Events

Upcoming Events Sponsored by the Film & Media Studies Program and Niehoff Center for Film & Media Studies
Keep updated on upcoming events on Twitter: Tweets by @cincyfilm”

Talk: “TV Spies via MTV: The Americans and the TV Spy Genre.”
Friday, March 4, 12PM (Old Chemn 701)
Linda Mizejewski from Ohio State University will discuss her fascinating new book about The Americans.

Description of the book from Wayne State UP:
Based on the actual KGB strategy of planting "illegals" into American life during the Cold War, The Americans (FX 2013–2018) focuses on Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Kerri Russell), Soviet spies posing as middlebrow travel agents in the Virginia suburbs. Groundbreaking and unsettling, The Americans spins its stories of espionage, violence, and politics around narratives of marriage, romance, bromance, and family. Exploring the series’ bold merger of the spy genre and domestic melodrama, author Linda Mizejewski focuses on the characters and relationships that made this series memorable: the extraordinary women who defy the femme fatale stereotype of the spy genre, the conflicted men, and perhaps most shockingly, the children who are both victims and provocateurs

Do viewers of this Cold War thriller root for "the good guys"—the American agents in pursuit of the Jennings—or for the Jennings themselves, the attractive couple whose personal stories compel us even as they plot the takedown of the United States? Mizejewski argues for the importance of The Americans’ portrayal of 1980s suburban life as a microcosm of the moral complexities of citizenship and national identity. 

Sponsored by the Niehoff Center for Film & Media Studies and the Taft Research Center

Coming Soon: Experimental Animated Shorts with Reels on Wheels (date and location TBD)

Screening of The Neutral Ground and live discussion with filmmaker CJ Hunt.
Tuesday, February 22, 6:30 at The Esquire Theatre.

In The Neutral Ground (2021), CJ Hunt investigates why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America. 

The Neutral Ground documents the City of New Orleans’ fight over monuments and America’s troubled romance with the Lost Cause. In 2015, director CJ Hunt was filming the New Orleans City Council’s vote to remove four confederate monuments. But when that removal is halted by death threats, CJ sets out to understand why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America.

CJ Hunt is a NYC-based comedian and filmmaker who currently works as a producer for the Daily Show.

Free tickets for the UC community and community partners. RSVP required: https://bit.ly/3griWWd

Sponsored by the African American Cultural & Resource Center, Charles Phelps Taft Research Center, College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, CPS Strong, Department of Journalism, Niehoff Center for Film & Media Studies, UC Office of Equity & Inclusion, School of Communication, Film, and Media Studies, School of Education, CECH 

Film & Media Studies and Niehoff Center Faculty and Student Mini Presentations

Join us on Friday, February 18 from 11:30-12:30 for short presentations on recent and ongoing research and creative work from faculty and students. 

Presenters:

Dani Granja will discuss the film Submergible (2020, Ecuador and Colombia), which she co-wrote with director Alfredo León León. In Submergible,  drug traffickers use makeshift submarines to carry cocaine from Colombia to California. Their crews complete the very dangerous one-way trips moved by the desire of starting a new life in the US. Sumergible is the movie about the crew of one submarine who, while at the ocean, have to survive multiple obstacles including not even able to trust each other.  

Nikki Smith will present a research project on the representations of women in Quebec cinema. 

Nikki Smith is a Master of the Arts candidate for Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies with an undergraduate degree in History. Her research interests include television's usage of feminism and the application of feminist messaging in modern texts to distract from the underlying reinforcement of patriarchal ideology.

Tanmay Srivastava will discuss his documentary 90 Days to Leave. This short documentary is about the expulsion of the Asian community from the East African nation of Uganda in 1972. The documentary tells not only of the racial hatred and military hostility that the Asians received from the Ugandan Africans but the difficulty of gaining their British visas, how others headed to America and Asian countries, and the further difficulties that awaited many of those who did get into Britain during the racially charged era of the 1970s, including political opposition to their arrival, discrimination, education, and employment.

One of the participants had an urgent matter come up, so the panel discussion with local festival organizers and filmmakers had to be postponed. It will now be next Wednesday, April 7, at the same time (4PM).

Checking In On The Local Indie Film Scene: A Panel Discussion with Allyson West (Cindependent Film Festival), and filmmakers Vernard Fields and Audrey Bertaux. April 7

Join us to learn how local festivals and filmmakers have adapted to the constraints of the pandemic and to discover what's in store as things begin to open up. There will also be information on summer student internship opportunities with the Reels on Wheels film program.

Allyson West is founder of Cindependent Film Festival and Reels on Wheels.

Vernard Fields runs the Black Cincinnati Cinema Collective

Audrey Bertaux is a producer and actor and works on theater, short films, and podcasts.

Book Presentation: Rethinking Jewishness in Weimar Cinema (edited by Barbara Hales and Valerie Weinstein) presentation and discussion by Professor Valerie Weinstein (WGSS/Film & Media Studies).
Friday, April 9.

Book description:
The burgeoning film industry in the Weimar Republic was, among other things, a major site of German-Jewish experience, one that provided a sphere for Jewish “outsiders” to shape mainstream culture. The chapters collected in this volume deploy new historical, theoretical, and methodological approaches to understanding the significant involvement of German Jews in Weimar cinema. Reflecting upon different conceptions of Jewishness – as religion, ethnicity, social role, cultural code, or text – these studies offer a wide-ranging exploration of an often overlooked aspect of German film history.

Covid-19 and the Future of the Local Film Industry: a Panel Discussion with Kristen Erwin Schlotman (Executive Director of Film Cincinnati), Karri O'Reilley (film producer), and Jaime Meyers Schlenck (film editor and President of Women in Film Cincinnati)
January 21, 2021

Our panelists will discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the film industry in Cincinnati and beyond. Topics include how new safety protocols impact the set, how getting production insurance has changed, and shifts within the industry and how they have affected the work coming to town. 

April 4, 2018 7PM. Screening of The Constitution (2016, Croatia/Czech Republic/Slovenia/Macedonia) in the presence of the director Rajko Grlić. The Esquire Theatre.

Croatian director Rajko Grlić tells a story about the state of his nation today, about coming to terms with the aftermath of war and the rise of extremist nationalism. Four very different people live in the same building in Zagreb but avoid each other because of differences in how they live their lives, what they believe in, and where they come from. They would probably never exchange a word, but misfortune pushes them towards each other. Their lives entangle in ways that profoundly challenge deep-held beliefs and prejudices surrounding material status, sexual orientation, nationality and religion. Slowly, and even painfully, they begin to open up to each other and recognize the essential humanity each of them possesses.

Winner of the grand prize at the 2016 Montreal World Film Festival.

Rajko Grlić is Distinguished Professor of Film at Ohio University and has written, directed, and produced dozens of films.

Center for Film and Media Studies Brown Bag Series

March 28, 2018 12:30-1:30. Evan Torner (German Studies) – "Interrogating Media Studies Through Game Studies”

Old Chem 701. Coffee and cookies provided.

Wednesdays October 26, November 2, November 9, and November 16, 2017

7:30 pm // The Mini Microcinema, 1329 Main St. 45202

October 26 - Le bois dont les rêves sont faits/The Woods that Dreams are Made of  (Claire Simon, 2015 - France)

Director Claire Simon offers a contemplative and respectful view of the ordinary people who come to the Bois de Vincennes on the edge of Paris to experience a certain kind of freedom and clarity that is not always offered in today’s society.  In this light and enriching documentary, Simon spends a year observing and interviewing the collection of people who run, walk, paint, write, think, rest and sometimes live within the largest public park in Paris.  Described by Marie-Pierre Duhamel as “a planet of its own made by ordinary people that all become extraordinary”, The Woods that Dreams are Made of harbors people from all walks of life: gay, straight, rich, poor, homeless, prostitutes, French, foreign, spectators, refugees, and parents.  All of whom come to the woods “in search of a utopian freedom” (Cineuropa) within the confines of the park nestled within the rushed and busy streets of Paris.

November 2 - Trees in Trouble and A Crack in the Pavement (Andrea Torrice, USA)

Local filmmaker, Andrea Torrice, presents her acclaimed documentaries and will talk about making films that address urban issues. Both films address urban issues of national importance by using Cincinnati as a case study.

November 9 - The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (Chad Freidrichs, 2011 - USA) and selected shorts programmed by Shayak Shome and Jing Xie (UC) and Julian Etienne (Mini Microcinema).

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the transformation of the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development and the St. Louis residents who called it home. At the film’s historical center is an analysis of the massive impact of the national urban renewal program of the 1950s and 1960s, which prompted the process of mass suburbanization and emptied American cities of their residents, businesses, and industries.

Introduced by Conrad Kickert, Assistant Professor of Urban Design.

November 16 - Double Happiness (Ella Reidel, 2014 - Austria/China) and selected shorts

Double Happiness takes the Chinese copy of Hallstatt, a small idyllic town in Austria, as a starting point to explore China's fast urbanization. Chinese cities are built where histories and memories can be easily forgotten and thus rewritten. the film intersects the real and the fake through visual imaginary and commentary, interviews and songs.

Series sponsored by the UC Center for Film and Media Studies, the UC School of Planning, and The Mini Microcinema

September 8th-22nd, 2016

Among major film producing nations, the French cinema industry boasts the highest share of movies made by women. This series explores the thematic, cultural, and geographic diversity of that output, presenting three French films or co-productions encompassing different approaches to women’s filmmaking in the French-speaking world. Each screening is introduced by a scholar in the field of French or Film Studies and will be followed by a discussion. A limited number of free tickets are available to UC students by e-mail RSVP (Michael.Gott@uc.edu). General admission tickets can be purchased online at http://www.esquiretheatre.com/ or at the box office.

Sponsored by the UC Center for Film and Media Studies, the department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures, the Alliance Française of Cincinnati and the Esquire Theatre. 

See The Center for Film and Media Studies' Facebook page for more information.

September 8th,2016  7:30 - Esquire Theatre
À peine, j'ouvre les yeux / As I Open My Eyes
(France, Tunisia, Belgium, 2015, directed by Leyla Bouzid)

Farah (Baya Medhaffar) becomes the lead singer in a rock band in the period leading up to Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution. Leyla Bouzid's "impressive debut" (Variety) conveys the fear and trepidation Farah experiences during this tumultuous period as she rebels against society and flaunts her parents' disapproval as well as police surveillance.

Introduced by Florence Martin of Goucher College. Professor Martin is a specialist of the cinemas of the Maghreb and author of Screens and Veils: Maghrebi Women's Cinema (Indiana University Press, 2011).

À peine, j'ouvre les yeux / As I Open My Eyes 

September 15th, 7:30 - Esquire Theatre
Parlez-moi de la pluie / Let's Talk About the Rain
(France, 2008, directed by Agnès Jaoui)

Following her mother's death, author Agathe (Agnès Jaoui) returns to her hometown and agrees to be profiled in a documentary about successful women. The documentarians, however, have ulterior motives and in this "deeply felt comedy of middle-class French life" (The Guardian), lives are intertwined and relationships are examined.

Introduced by Thérèse Migraine-George (Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies). 

September 22nd, 7:30 - Esquire Theatre
Persepolis
(France, USA, 2007, directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)

This critically-acclaimed coming-of-age story follows an intelligent and outspoken young girl as she grows up during the Iranian Revolution. As opposed to a conventional autobiography, Persepolis is an animated film "full of warmth and surprise" (New York Times) as it depicts the life of director Marjane Satrapi. The film is adapted from the 2000 comic book of the same name by Satrapi.

Introduced by Mark McKinney, Miami University (French and Italian).

World Cinema and Television in French Conference

Panels are open to all. Please find the schedule at: http://www.worldcinemainfrench.com/schedule.html

Conference Keynote: Bill Marshall "Rethinking Francophone Film: World Cinemas and World History" 

Friday, September 9, 5:00pm-6:15pm / Old Chem 701 (Reception to follow in the Kade Center - 736 Old Chem)

Jean-Alexander Ntivyihabwa will talk about  the narrow path of financing and producing relevant music and culture-driven TV productions for the German and international TV market. Discussion moderated by Kevin Burke (Professor, Electronic Media).

Entertain and Educate flyer

Wednesday April 13, 5:30-7:30 // Max Kade Center (Old Chem 736)

Celebrate the first anniversary of the Center for Film and Media Studies Program at the University of Cincinnati and learn about its plans for the future and how you can be involved. Join members of UC faculty, the Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky Film Commission, students, community mediamakers, and all those interested in the future of media. Student films will be screened and we will provide updates on the current state and future plans for film in Cincinnati.

Refreshments will be served.

Wednesday April 20 // 

Introduction at 2:15pm, screening at 2:30pm, & discussion to follow at 4:00pm

The director of Goya-nominated La Gunguna (2015, Dominican Republic) will visit UC to present his film and answer questions.  

The Center for Film and Media Studies and the DAAP School of Planning present “Cinema in the City”, a series of films presented at the Esquire Theater. This semester we will show three films that represent iconic metropolitan areas: Do the Right Thing (New York), Metropolis (the fictional Metropolis), and La Haine (Paris).  Each film will be introduced by a faculty member from the DAAP School of Planning to situate its urban and invite the audience can consider how the city is portrayed through cinema. A discussion led by UC film faculty will follow.