watching
I watch films and attend to the conditions that allow them to appear and circulate, how, where, and to whom.
I am drawn to film programming as a medium through which relation might be practiced, and as a performative space with the potential of reciprocity between the maker, the offering hand and the receiving audience. I am less interested in it as a curatorial space of spectacle, display or education.
There is deep ambivalence in my attachment to programming work (I have thought of myself as a ‘recovering’ programmer and I have been called a ‘post-curator’ ). I often wonder if I have chosen the wrong form for my desires.
I wonder if film screening, with its focus on the singular work or maker can only ever be the ruse if the aim is horizontal, meaningful connection.
In recent years, attending to the how of showing films — as Ruth Wilson Gilmore would have it “Why this? Why this, here? Why this, here, now?” — has preoccupied me more than researching what films should or could be shown. This has meant films and programmes have rarely been assembled at all.
I want this space of absence to be known as a space of desire.
As I have followed the connections led by why rather than what, I have become aware that my love for film, cinema spaces and curatorial work has atrophied through this attentiveness. I am interested in finding out — in the company of others who are equally attentive to the asymmetric power relations that govern film circulation — what new love might grow in the gap that the old love resided in.
You can read and watch more about my thoughts on this here and here.
My watching emerges from many years of institutional work, my previous desire for inclusion into elite spaces, the contradictory forces of my ambivalence towards and need for recognition of my work, and experiences of relational disappointment wrought by the psychosocial limitations of most spaces of moving image circulation and gathering.
Previously I was a film programmer for 10 years in festivals and cinema exhibition and programmed independent film events through a screening series before that.
In 2021 I was Head of Programming at Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival and was the Co Chair of LUX between 2017-2022.
I am currently Chair of the Feature Film Programming Committee at Blackstar Film Festival in Philadelphia, Experience Fellow at BAM in Brooklyn New York, and Programmer in Residence at the Flaherty Seminar.
Other collaborations are United Screens and A Circle Of Protection, a film collective with Samia Labidi, Abhishek Nilamber and Viknesh Kobinathan committed to spaces of gathering, offering and support.
The Limits of SharingBy Simran Hans
Read
Best Girl Grip PodcastInterview with Nicole Taylor
Listen
Reflections 5Tara Judah
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Reflections 6:
Tara Judah
Read
Notes from the FieldConversation with Matt Turner on Sentient. Art. Film
Read
When Hope Is Weary:Jemma Desai Questions What We Choose to Ignore
International Documentary Association
Read / PDF
Screening of Blood Ah Goh Run (1981) dir Menelik Shabazz as part of a programme for London Short Film Festival called Free White and 21 (2017)
ConversationsHow we Gather with United Screens
IDA Watch
Cinematic Interventions to Freeing Palestine & The Global South Symposium No Evil Eye Cinema Watch
The Truth about Film Festival
Distribution Advocates Listen
Creating spaces, sharing spaces
Berlinale Forum Expanded
Watch
Deconstructing Festivals: How much do we want what we say that we want?
Open City Documentary Film Festival
Read
In conversation with Rehana Zaman
BFMAF
Listen
In conversation with Jordan Lord
BFMAF
Listen
In conversation with Suneil Sanzgiri
BFMAF Listen
About Girlfriends: in conversation with Claudia Weill
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Read
Keynotes & Lectures
IDA KeynoteA film worker’s search for integrity Watch / Read
Yearning for new ways to make and circulate:
towards an infrastructure of being longing
Abandon Normal Devices Keynote Listen
Yearning as Method:
Notes on Programming Latifah and Himli’s Nomadic Uncle
Independent Cinema Office
Watch / Read
Selected Programmes
BFMAF 2021 Notes (on programming)
Guiding Thoughts
Online Exhibition
Public Intimacies: CorrespondencesA Programme of Films by Alia Syed
London Short Film Festival 2020
Domestic Estrangement
Raven Row
Listen
The seven provocations Little White Lies
A London panel event looked to ask questions about how best to achieve gender equality in the film industry.
Read
Two films by Josephine Decker
UK Tour website
Read
Adventures with UK audiences: taking two films by Josephine Decker on tour
by Simran Hans
Read
I am Dora Between 2012-2015 I curated a screening series and publication that explored identification with female characters through the frame of psychoanalysis. Each screening began with a performance introduction and was accompanied with a printed publication which explored my identification with characters in the films which was designed with Claire Huss.
Rarely has promotional publication been so meticulously thought out
Its Nice That Read
On beginning I am Dora
Institute of Contemporary Arts Read
Who, What Why Jemma Desai on I Am Dora AnOther Magazine
Read
On-Screen Activism at the London Short Film Festival
AnOther Magazine Read
7 female friendships on film British Film Institute BFI
Read