Please note there will be a reception at 6 PM open to all attendees.
NIGHT TWO: Bodies of Time
Bodies of Time is the 2026 Northwestern Documentary Media MFA Thesis showcase. These films consider ways in which bodies across geographies inhabit a place and how places can settle or unsettle bodies across human and nonhuman timescales. In these works, we search for wild orchids in Yunnan, China; observe the state of migratory limbo of a Tibetan mother and son in Kathmandu, Nepal; wayfind historical encounters across anachronistic timescales in a Chicago canal; and explore the tension between change and stasis as experienced through meditations on place in Chillicothe, Illinois.
Following the screening, Block Cinema Curator Michael Metzger will join the filmmakers for a conversation and Q&A with the audience.
Films:
Canal Land (Alan Medina, 2026, 15:30 mins, 16mm-to-digital)
Anachronistic encounters along industrial banks convey the use and abuse of a Chicago canal. Settlers are frozen in time, the waters remember, and an amphibian presence persists.
Our Time Here (Victor Ramos, 2026, 20 mins, Digital)
A portrait of a Midwestern town, observed through the routines of its aging population.
Orchidaceae (Maya Castronovo, 2026, 18 mins, Digital)
a search for an endangered orchid species in Yunnan, China, anchors an investigation into networks of cultivation, and the porous boundary between the authentic and the staged.
Between Two Skies (________, 2026, 35 mins, Digital)
A Tibetan mother and her eleven-year-old son living in Kathmandu, Nepal, await a family reunion in Canada.
Total runtime: approx. 88 min
Co-presented by Northwestern’s School of Communication, The Department of Radio-TV-Film, Jane Steiner Hoffman and Michael Hoffman, and The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art.
Cost: FREE
Block Museum of Art
(847) 491-4000
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