Guest post by Cole Nelson and Mallika Khanna.
InLight 2022 seeks to situate contemporary documentary filmmaking in relation to the growing catastrophes which have shaped modern life by understanding documentary as a unique tool in the struggle for social transformation. What’s more, we wish to use the filmgoing experience as a preface for rigorous, thorough, and sober conversations among community members to reflect on the ways in which we address crises and build community. After all, what good is a call to action without a response?
The world is a dramatically different place than it was even two years ago. Between the ravages of a global pandemic, a great and ongoing reckoning with police brutality and anti-Blackness, the devastating effects of the U.S. military’s involvement in Afghanistan, the persistent negligence of global leaders in attending to the present and future consequences of climate collapse and Russia’s catastrophic invasion of Ukraine, crises no longer come as shocks; disasters are chillingly omnipresent.
Through it all, communities committed to social justice have persisted and sought new ways to survive with one another.
The eight films curated for InLight 2022 were selected to showcase precisely this persistence. Each film approaches social crises in a different way: Acasa, My Home and Midnight Family identify issues around public infrastructure and bring to light those who most experience their weight. Others such as Detroit 48202 and Since I Been Down highlight the means through which communities address crises and seek to mitigate and overcome their effects. Running through all the films is a sense that injustices and inequalities are of human design, and the solutions require human collaboration, care, and compassion.
Our films fall broadly under two relevant categories: first, the legacies of racial violence and resistance to them, and, secondly, the inequities which arise through strained or crumbling public health infrastructure. For the first, we have selected a number of films which both document the persistence of systemic racism as well as demonstrate the practices of communities who are dismantling systems of racial and ethnic oppression. Detroit 48202 details the varied legacies of community resistance to anti-Black racism in the former industrial metropolis where city and company alike conspire to oppress the Black community. Since I Been Down showcases efforts at collective education by incarcerated people, who tend to be disproportionately Black and Brown, suggesting alternatives to our current, troubling conceptions of criminality. Black Mother shifts to a poetic register, offering an ethereal meditation on spirituality and maternity in Jamaican culture. Though not centering resistance to anti-Blackness, Donbass, The Viewing Booth, and Acasa, My Home highlight the prevalence of ethnic discrimination in Ukraine, Palestine, and Romania, respectively.
For our second theme, we have curated two films that exemplify the pitfalls of a determined negligence of public health, something which has increasing resonance with the contemporary moment. With Midnight Family, we follow the nightly excursions of a family in Mexico City who operate a private ambulance service in the wake of the state’s insufficient supply of public ambulances. Collective details the investigative reporting of one Romanian sports columnist who exposed the negligence of the Romanian government and its public health apparatus. Both films portray the devastation wrought by the absence of robust health infrastructures while taking a critical look at what emerges in their wake.
While InLight 2022 is invested in using documentary to further efforts towards suffusing social justice with an ethic of care, the festival is also committed to thinking through documentary as a form. What can and can’t documentaries do when set the task of relaying state violence, marginalization or, indeed, collective efforts at regaining agency on screen? This meta-exploration of documentary as a tool in service of social justice runs through our discussions around the films, including in featured conversations with filmmakers Gilda Sheppard and Pam Sporn.
After two years of stalled public gatherings and deterred communal experiences, we look forward to coming together to explore the expanded role of documentary within the manifold movements for social justice.
InLight Film Festival will present three screenings at IU Cinema: Acasa, My Home on April 14, Donbass on April 15, and Collective on April 16.
For information about the festival’s additional screenings, visit InLight’s website.
Cole Nelson is a PhD student in the Media School at IU. He is currently researching working-class journalism and the Black press in the United States, centering on the Midwest region and the industrial belt.
Mallika Khanna is a PhD student in the Media School at IU. She works on digital media and diasporic cultures and is interested in media as tools for building social movements.