Join us at Ventilator Cinema on Tuesday, May 9th for a program of two recent films that propose hybrid modalities of encounter to address contested transformations of the urban environment. Combining archival research, oral history, and performance, these films revisit and renegotiate contrasting views of the city and public space and explore the limits of interpersonal understanding. This program is presented by the Association of Moving Image Archivists chapter at the University of Amsterdam. Introduced by Finn Jubak

Program:
19:00: doors open
19:30: Committee of six
20:10: short break
20:30: WTC: A love story
21:30: Drinks at the bar

Films:

Committee of Six (2022, 40m), directed by Fred Schmidt-Arenales
Language: English; Subtitles: English
Committee of Six is an enactment of archival meeting minutes held at the University of Chicago. The meetings took place in 1955 between community leaders and University officials for the purpose of creating an “Urban Renewal Program" for the neighborhood of Hyde Park, situated in the south side of Chicago. The film documents the process of a group of performers, academics, residents, and activists interpreting the archival documents. The film invites comparison between the language of the past and the contemporary reality of gentrification and racist real estate practices in Chicago.

WTC: A Love Story (2021, 60m), directed by Lietje Bauwens and Wouter De Raeve
Languages: Dutch, French, English; Subtitles: English
In the 1970s, the district surrounding the Brussels-North railway station was entirely destroyed to give way to a largely unsuccessful urban planning project. By bringing together real people and the actors who play them, the film brilliantly deals with the relationships of power between the protagonists involved in the re-development of a zone with many political and social issues.