JUNE 22 ⸻ AUGUST 5
NO EVIL EYE CINEMA is proud to announce FILM FUTURA ‘21, an alternative satellite film school that takes a decolonizing approach to profiling the PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE of film history, practice, and radical cinematic possibilities.
We’re honored to host a team of forward thinking international film practitioners to challenge the traditional dissemination of scholarship and discourse within FILM FUTURA’s multidisciplinary structure.
FILM FUTURA will take place over the course of SEVEN weeks starting in mid-June and will be hosted entirely on our new website. We welcome a global cohort of prospective students with all levels of film education, united by an interest in expanding the margins of the cinematic experience.
IMPORTANT DATES
May 20-June 7
STUDENT ENROLLMENT
Applications will be open until MIDNIGHT on June 7.
June 14
STUDENTS NOTIFIED OF ACCEPTANCE
June 22
FILM FUTURA BEGINS
Classes will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6-8pm EST and occasionally on Saturday in the early afternoon EST.
August 5
FILM FUTURA ENDS
YASMINA PRICE
Yasmina Price is a writer, researcher, and PhD student in the Departments of African American Studies and Film & Media Studies at Yale University. She focuses on anti-colonial African cinema and the work of visual artists across the Black diaspora, with a particular interest in the experimental work of women filmmakers. She has interviewed filmmakers and participated in panels on black film and revolutionary cultural production organized by The Maysles Documentary Center, International Documentary Association, New York Film Festival and more. Recent writing has appeared in The Current (Criterion), The New Inquiry, The New York Review of Books, the Metrograph Journal, Vulture, Hyperallergic and MUBI.
@jasminprix (Twitter + Instagram)
RORY
PADGETT
Rory Padgett is a Brooklyn based filmmaker and educator. He studied film at Howard University, under the guidance of Haile Gerima and Julie Dash. While at Howard, Rory taught ‘Film and Social Change’, a legacy course Elyseo Taylor created during the LA Rebellion. Rory revamped the syllabus to include AIDS Video Activism and Palestinian Cinema. He’s worked on films with Julie Dash (Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl) and Stanley Nelson (Boss: The Black Experience in Business). He directed the romantic experimental film Orchid Boys. He currently runs Vibration Cinema, a collage of video essays that challenge common sense notions of film.
@Rem_Blues [Twitter], @remblues [Instagram]
DEVIKA GIRISH
Devika Girish is the co-deputy editor of Film Comment magazine and a Talks programmer at the New York Film Festival. She is also a contributor to the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Sight & Sound, Reverse Shot, the Criterion Collection, the Village Voice, and other publications, and has served on the selection committees of the Mumbai Film Festival and the Berlin Critics’ Week. Born and raised in India, Devika has a B.A. in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University and an M.A. in Specialized Arts Journalism from the University of Southern California, where she was an Annenberg Fellow. Her work has been recognized with a 2018 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award and a 2019 Southern California Journalism Award, among other honors.
@devikagirgayi (Twitter + Instagram)
ABBY SUN
Abby Sun is an artist, film programmer, and researcher at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, where she is a graduate student in Comparative Media Studies and edits Immerse. Through her work, Abby considers the power dynamics in the documentary form’s inherent smudging of reality, with a particular interest in the media infrastructures and cultural artifacts of moving image exhibition. Abby has bylines in Film Comment, Filmmaker Magazine, Film Quarterly, Hyperallergic, and other publications. She has served on juries for Cleveland, Palm Springs, New Orleans, CAAMfest, and DOC NYC, reviewed applications for BGDM, NEA, SFFILM, LEF Foundation, Sundance Catalyst, IF/Then Shorts, and spoken on and facilitated panels at TIFF, NYFF, and other film festivals. Her latest short film, “Cuba Scalds His Hand” (co-directed with Daniel Garber), premiered at Maryland Film Festival in 2019. Most recently, Abby is the Curator of the DocYard and co-curated My Sight is Lined with Visions: 1990s Asian American Film & Video with Keisha Knight. She previously was senior editor of Nat. Brut and programmer for True/False Film Fest and Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. Her hometown is Columbia, Missouri, US.
@abbypsun (Twitter + Instagram)
KEISHA KNIGHT
Keisha Knight is an ex-dancer, film programmer/moving image curator, and interrogator of visual culture. Keisha has a BA in Comparative Religion from Barnard College, an MA in Media Studies from Pratt Institute, and is a doctoral candidate in Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University where her research focuses on visual archeologies of Blackness in the 19th century. Keisha’s teaching interests include Media Infrastructures, Continental Philosophy, Film Studies, Black Studies, and Critical Media Practice. Keisha is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Sentient.Art.Film and will be Visiting Faculty in Media Studies at Bennington College for 2021-2022.
@sentient.art.film (Instagram)
NUOTAMA BODOMO
Nuotama Bodomo is a Ghanaian filmmaker who earned a BA in Film Studies at Columbia University and an MFA in Film Production at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her award-winning short films Boneshaker (2013) and Afronauts (2014) both premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and Everybody Dies! premiered at SXSW as part of the omnibus feature film Collective:Unconscious (2016). Afronauts was exhibited at the Whitney Museum in 2016, Venice Biennale Architecture in 2018, and at the Lubumbashi Biennale in 2015. Nuotama has also served as staff writer & director on the Peabody Award-winning first season of Random Acts of Flyness (HBO) and co-founded the New Negress Film Society. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2014 and a United States Artists Fellow in Film in 2019.
@mothertongue.mp4 (Instagram)
AIKO MASUBUCHI
Aiko Masubuchi is a film programmer, producer and translator based in New York and Tokyo. She was the Senior Film Programmer at Japan Society and has since guest programmed at venues such as Film Forum and Anthology Film Archives in New York. She is the project leader of NANG Magazine’s special online issue dedicated to independent cinema spaces in Asia (due out in early summer 2021). With her friends and collaborators, she produced the short film THE CHICKEN by Neo Sora which world premiered at Locarno Film Festival. She is currently producing Neo’s first feature, EARTHQUAKE. She mainly translates and interprets in the field of film and art. Her most recent translation is in Terminal Boredom, a collection of short stories by Izumi Suzuki published by Verso Books.
@eye_ko_tai_ko (Twitter)
DARIAN
HENRY
Darian Henry is a filmmaker, digital media educator, founding member and co-executive director of the nationally renowned film and media organization Youth FX. She has shot, directed, and produced over 20 short documentary, narrative, and experimental films, some of which have screened in festivals across the country and around the world. As an educator, Darian uses film as a means to build community, empowering youth from underrepresented communities in a wide range of Youth FX programs that arm them with the skills to create their own short documentary and narrative films. Darian is also the co-founder and co-director of NeXt Doc, an internationally known documentary fellowship that provides access and support to young filmmakers from marginalized communities. Darian Henry was born in Hanover, Jamaica. She currently lives in New York.
@b.k.p.l.m (Instagram), @BKPLM16 (Twitter)
NeXt Doc: @nextdocfilm (Instagram), YouthFX: @youthfxfilm (Instagram + Twitter)
DANIELLA SHREIR
Daniella Shreir is a translator, programmer and editor based in London, and sometimes in Paris. She is the founder and co-editor of Another Gaze and the programmer of Another Screen. In 2019, her translation of Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs was published by Silver Press.
@daniellashr (Twitter), @daniellas (Instagram)
Another Gaze/Another Screen: @anothergaze (Twitter), @anothergazejournal (Instagram)
INNEY PRAKASH
Inney Prakash is a film curator based in NYC. He is the Founder & Director of Prismatic Ground, a new festival centered on experimental documentary that held its first edition online from from April 8-18, 2021. He’s a cinema programmer at Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem and has worked with other festivals including Sundance, Ann Arbor, Freep, Human Rights Watch, DOC NYC, SXSW, and as a judge for the International Documentary Association.
@storebrandbrown (Twitter)
Prismatic Ground: @prismaticground (Instagram + Twitter)
MELISSA
LYDE
Melissa Lyde is a Brooklyn native-born and raised. She’s the founder and programmer of Alfreda’s Cinema, an ongoing series at The Metrograph in New York. Alfreda’s Cinema screens films that tell Black/POC stories that resonate with depth and love, the richness and culture of our history, our dynamics, our shapes, our colors, and our truth. Melissa has worked in film distribution and production and has written for Framework, the Journal of Cinema and Media. She recently completed her first film work, a short doc called “On The Backs of Blk Wmn” (2021, 34min). Melissa has also founded an online Black Cinema journal called La Critique du Film Noir. She’s currently starting up an independent film distribution consultancy and Black film space in Brooklyn.
Alfreda’s Cinema: @alfredascinema (Twitter + Instagram)
RÓISÍN TAPPONI
Róisín Tapponi is a film curator, programmer and writer based in London. She is Founder of Habibi Collective, an open resource, digital archive and platform for women’s cinema from South-West Asia and North Africa; she is Founder CEO of Shasha, the world’s first independent streaming service for SWANA cinema; and Founder Editor-in-Chief of ART WORK Magazine, a site of critical inquiry for cultural workers. Tapponi has directed six film festivals including Independent Iraqi Film Festival (IIFF), and has curated exhibitions at institutions such as Museum of Modern Art (MoMA; NYC), Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF; Sharjah) and MAAT (Lisbon), where she is currently showing a six-month moving-image exhibition, commissioned by Art Jameel. Tapponi is a contributing writer at Frieze Magazine; she has delivered masterclasses at Locarno Film Festival (2021) and CPH:DOX (2021); she has lectured on cinema at Oxford University, Northwestern University, UC Berkeley and many more. She has recently been awarded the World-Leading PhD Scholarship in Art History hosted by St Andrews, to undertake research on feminism and immigration: documentary photography towards legal aid.
@roisintapponi (Instagram)
Habibi Collective: @habibicollective (Instagram), Shasha Movies: @shashamovies (Instagram)
JEMMA
DESAI
Jemma Desai is based in London. She is currently Head of Programming at Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival in the UK and is about to undertake a practice based PhD on the histories of liberatory performance and moving image in the UK and the possibilities opened up through ideas of abolitionist praxis at Central School of Speech and Drama. Her practice engages with film programming through research, writing, performance, as well as informally organised settings for deep study, and her work experience spans distribution, cinema exhibition and festival programming. Her most recent body of work is “This work isn’t for Us” which draws attention to the human cost of attempting institutional reform while navigating ‘diversity’ policy rooted in white supremacy. She has previously worked at institutions such as the BFI and British Council and is interested in the ways imperialism replicates itself through institutionalised work processes and impacts the ways we relate to one another through art. You can find more about her work here.
@jemjemdesi (Twitter), @iamjemmadesai (Instagram)
DEEPA
DHANRAJ
Deepa Dhanraj has been actively involved with the women’s movement since 1980. Over the last few years, she has participated in workshops, seminars and discussion groups on various issues related to women’s status – political participation, health and education. Deepa has taught video to women activists from South-East Asia. She has an interest in media theory and has given numerous lectures in various forums; including colleges all over the country. She was one of the lead researchers on a multi centered research study, ‘Minority Women Negotiating Citizenship’. Deepa is also interested in issues related to education, particularly problems faced by children who are first generation learners.
BRETT
STORY
Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and activist based out of Toronto. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals widely, including at CPH-DOX, SXSW, Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc Fest. She is the director of the recent films The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) and The Hottest August (2019), and author of the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power Across Neoliberal America. She is Assistant Professor of Image Arts at Ryerson University and her work has received support from the Sundance Institute and the Guggenheim Foundation.
@brettpstory (Instagram + Twitter)
ADAM
PIRON
Adam Piron is a filmmaker based in Southern California. He’s a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, a Kanienʼkehá꞉ka (Mohawk) descendant and was raised in Phoenix, Arizona. His films have played in The New Yorker’s Documentary Series, True/False Film Festival, AFI DOCS, MoMA Doc Fortnight, San Francisco International Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, Indie Grits and various other festivals.
He is also a co-founder of COUSIN, a collective supporting Indigenous artists expanding the form of film. He received his BA in Film Production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and currently works as the Associate Director of Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program.
@adam_piron (Twitter)
COUSIN Collective: @cousin_collective (Instagram), @cousinorg (Twitter)
Tracking the History of Cinema, the Camera, and Historical Alternatives to Popular Cinephilia
How can our past inform our present and future? In what ways can we honor revolutionary cinematic trailblazers? What lessons can we learn? What legacies can we build upon?
Tuesday June 22, 6-8PM
LECTURE 01 — THE IMAGE w/ Yasmina Price
This first lecture will consider the development of the photographic image and cinematic technologies through their relationship to racism, colonialism and imperialism. We will think through the paradigm of The West vs. The Rest (Stuart Hall), the connection between Euro-centric/Western regimes of seeing and the creation of categories of “The Other,” as well as the relation to the disciplines of anthropology and ethnography.
June 24, 6-7PM
OFFICE HOURS
Tuesday June 29, 6-8PM
LECTURE 02 — THE COUNTER IMAGE w/ Yasmina Price
The second lecture will focus on intentional practices of counter-image making, which sought to not just refute the strangleholds of white supremacy, Hollywood and European cinema but also generate alternative visual cultures. While we will consider the productive connections between filmmaking in the Global South and left/revolutionary white filmmakers in the U.S. and Europe (French Left Bank, cinema verité, direct cinema) and particularly the Soviet Union (Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, the use of agitprop and cinema schools), we will prioritize filmmakers from Africa, Latin America and their diasporas.
Thursday July 1, 6-8PM
SKILLSHARE COURSE — QUILTING FILM HISTORY: WEAVING FORGOTTEN PRACTICE OF FILM INTO THE PRESENT w/ Rory Padgett
This class teaches students about histories of film that have been buried by the colonial film industries. It illustrates how ‘primitive’ practices of film prefigured digital and internet technologies, laying the groundwork for streaming, Vine, Youtube, GoPro, etc. The course encourages students to fold their familial and cultural histories into broader patchwork of film history.
Deconstructing Contemporary Cinephilia
Offering alternative structures to 21st century filmic practice, exhibition, distribution, and more
Saturday July 3, 1-3PM
PANEL 01 — PERMISSION + POWER w/ Devika Girish, Jemma Desai, Brett Story & Darian Henry
A roundtable discussion on the workings of permission and power in art-making, art criticism, and education. Who needs permission to enter these fields? Who has the power to grant permission? In what ways are barriers to entry implicit versus explicit? How can art transgress boundaries of power in its own making?
PANELISTS
– Brett Story, filmmaker and academic
– Jemma Desai, filmmaker and curator
– NeXtDoc/YouthFX co-founder, Darian Henry
July 6, 6-7PM
STUDIO DAY
Tuesday July 13, 6-8PM
PRESENTATION + CONVERSATION 01 — UNDERSTANDING DISTRIBUTION w/ Abby Sun + Keisha Knight
What are the practices, politics, and pressures of distribution? Our aim with this course is to give students a broader understanding of the logics of distribution, practical tools and strategies for approaching systems of circulation, and a chance to think together about what distribution networks we want to see.
July 15, 6-7:30PM
OFFICE HOURS
Saturday July 17, 1-3PM
PANEL #02 — REFLECTING THROUGH VIRTUAL CINEMAS w/ Abby Sun, Melissa Lyde, Daniella Shreir, Róisín Tapponi & Aiko Masubuchi
What are the material realities and unconscious pleasures of exhibition? How does that translate to virtual cinemas, and what myths should we be wary of? What are the politics of virtual cinemas? What interventions can and should one make, whether considering exhibition as a filmmaker, producer, and viewer?
For this class, the panelists will pick apart what we mean when we say “exhibition,” from the busywork to the logistics of continuing long-term projects. Student participation is highly encouraged via the course chatroom, as the panel conversation will both make space for a robust Q&A section as well as be steered in the direction that students find most useful.
PANELISTS
– Habibi Collective and Shasha Movies founder, Róisín Tapponi
– Another Gaze and Another Screen founder, Daniella Shreir
– Alfreda’s Cinema founder, Melissa Lyde
– Independent curator, translator, researcher, Aiko Masubuchi
July 20, 6-7PM
OFFICE HOURS
Thursday July 22, 6-8PM
MASTERCLASS — UNBRAIDING THE 3-ACT STRUCTURE w/ Nuotama Bodomo
If you’ve taken a screenwriting class you’ve probably heard of Three-Act Structure, a formalist understanding of film writing that purports to be universal. But how can this form, constructed from Greek theatrical practices and Euro-American conceptions of temporality and human achievement, even begin to render all our stories? In this class, Nuotama Bodomo will present her pedagogical affront/video lecture “Un-Braiding 3-Act Structure” in which she looks to indigenous knowledge systems—specifically the Kente cloth—for alternative narrative organizational structures. 3 participants will then offer more alternative narrative structures to further create new possibilities for film construction.
Envisioning the Possibilities of Cinephilia
What cinematic aesthetics can we make room for? What can we anticipate? How can we actively build towards these possible realities?
Tuesday July 27, 6-8PM
WORKSHOP: TOWARDS DEMOCRATIZING FILM w/ Devika Girish, Inney Prakash, Deepa Dhanraj, Adam Piron & Ruun Nuur
A workshop on democratic and collective approaches to filmmaking, film criticism, and curation focused on envisioning new futures. With the help of an expert panel, we will consider historical and contemporary experiments in reinventing hierarchical production practices from around the globe and map out visions for a democratic film future.
PANELISTS
– Inney Prakash, founder of Prismatic Ground and programmer at Maysles Cinema
– Deepa Dhanraj, co-founder of Yugantar Film Collective
– Adam Piron, co-founder of COUSIN Collective and Associate Director of Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program
– Ruun Nuur, founder of SVLLY(wood) and co-founder of NO EVIL EYE CINEMA
July 29, 6-7PM
OFFICE HOURS
Tuesday August 3, 6-7:30PM
PRESENTATION + WORKSHOP: DREAMCASTING THE CINESCAPE w/ Ruun Nuur & Ingrid Raphaël
In the penultimate FILM FUTURA class, NEE co-founders will present inventive models to envision the future of cinema. From identifying cultural producers who are creating beyond the binaries of cinematic aesthetics to mapping new modes of promoting accessibility, this workshop aims to assist students in dreaming bigger.
Thursday August 5, 6-7:30PM
FINAL PRESENTATION LINKUP w/ Ruun Nuur & Ingrid Raphaël
Students and members of the NO EVIL EYE team will present their moodboarding and reflection project representing their imaginations of a democratized cinephilia. Final Projects can be submitted in whichever way the student expresses their creativity (i.e: essay, video, photography series, etc). Final Projects will not be graded.
GROUP STUDY: $250
(scholarships available)
We’re looking for a dynamic group of passionate students who can adapt FILM FUTURA into a communal learning experience, reflective of the scholarship shared within the duration of the school.
SELF STUDY: $100
(scholarships available)
This is an independently guided course for students who can’t commit to attending the live session structure.
Fill out the scholarship questionnaire below if you’re seeking financial assistance.
- A group of 35 students (at max): an engaged, respective student body that will be active participants and build connections within their cohort.
- Upon admission, you’ll receive official Onboarding material(s).
- Access to a private link to live courses.
- Access to collaborative notes: including links to resources, readings, and references during live sessions.
- Access to a group Slack/WhatsApp.
- Comfortability with being recorded: we’re documenting our live sessions to share with the self-paced cohort and to also store in our archives for possible future publication.
- Access to Office Hours: informal conversations following weekly courses, with fellow students, NO EVIL EYE team, and educators.
- Create the Final Project (which will live within the NO EVIL EYE CINEMA archive).
- Be available to attend the live session classes on Eastern Standard Time Zone (EST). Due to the intimacy of the cohort, attendance for the live sessions are highly encouraged.
- Live Session Students will receive a FILM FUTURA Certificate at the end of the school.
Fill out the scholarship questionnaire below if you’re seeking financial assistance.
- We’re capping at 50 students (maximum).
- Upon admission, you’ll receive official Onboarding material(s).
- Access to recorded videos of each course, uploaded weekly, with links to resources, readings and references.
- Self-Paced Students may be welcomed to join on certain live sessions (specifically panel discussions).
Nope! FILM FUTURA was specifically created to accommodate students with varied film educational backgrounds. What’s key is possessing a genuine interest in film and mapping alternative futures.
No problem, we created 2 modules of learning to emphasize the international student body we’re actively curating with the understanding that not everyone can make it to the live sessions.
GROUP STUDY is targeted toward students who can attend the live sessions on Eastern Standard TimeZone and interested in being involved in a communal educational experience.
SELF STUDY is for students whose schedules don’t align with the curriculum and/or would prefer an independent study approach.
If you’re accepted into GROUP STUDY, attending live sessions is highly recommended if not mandatory. Your attendance and participation is key to activating the communal learning experience. If you have to miss a class, we can share the recorded class after it’s been edited.
While it’s not strictly mandatory, we highly recommend it as a way to connect with fellow students, the NEE team, educators, and panelists.
We will have ASL interpreters and live captioning for all sessions.
Two important reasons:
- To share with SELF STUDY students.
- To document and persevere NO EVIL EYE’s work and possibly publish in the future.
For students accepted into the GROUP STUDY, there will be different ways to connect both inside and outside the virtual sessions including but not limited to a group Slack/WhatsApp, office and studio hours, etc.
We’ve even teamed up with a virtual teaching assistant to assist in facilitating student engagement throughout the duration of FILM FUTURA.
There’s a short prompt included in the student application form for needs based students to apply. You’ll be notified of an acceptance and tuition waiver at the same time.
Nope, no additional costs are necessary. Just the initial admissions fee. We’ll make sure to share free and accessible resources to literature and films if necessary.
No homework! That being said, certain educators might share recommended readings and films to watch before their class.
Although there’s no homework, a final project is mandatory for all GROUP STUDY students to reflect on their time within the school. The project’s aim is to be a cumulative reflection on the lessons learned during FILM FUTURA and can be made in whichever creative practice the student aligns with. If you’re a writer, your project can be a written piece. If you’re a video maker, your project can be a short film. If you’re a designer, you can create a visual presentation, etc etc.
Admitted students in both the GROUP and SELF STUDY will be alerted on Monday June 14th by MIDNIGHT EST at the latest. You’ll receive an email with onboarding instructions and a link to pay for your session. The first class will follow on Tuesday June 22nd.