Cinema Thinks the World: Rewind & Play (2022) Film Screening and Discussion

February 16, 2023
6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
at UBC Robson Square (map)

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About the Event

Cinema Thinks The World is proud to present a special screening of Rewind and Play for Black History Month, and will be followed by a discussion/Q&A of the film, led by local experts and scholars from UBC, including:
– Dr. Arturo Victoriano, Assistant Professor of Spanish, UBC Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies;
– Olumoroti George of The Black Arts Centre; and
– Nya Lewis Williams, local curator, writer, and artist. 

This event is free and everyone is welcome to attend. This is the fifth of six free screenings that will be held at Robson Square as part of the Cinema Thinks the World series.  

About the Film

Rewind & Play reworks a 1969 French television interview with jazz icon Thelonious Monk, exposing the casual racism at work in French television production at the time. In the process, the film also exposes the limitations of the very medium of television, as well as the antiblackness that continues to be felt in our media-saturated society today.

While providing a searing indictment of the racialized power dynamics of the western world, however, Rewind & Play also offers us insight into the eccentric genius of Monk, who in his words, in his gestures, and most especially in his performance, resists the would-be controlling gaze of his white interviewer. Directed by award-winning French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis, Rewind & Play is as devastating in its politics as it is thrilling in its glimpse into the creative genius of one of jazz music’s most beloved performers. 

Event Schedule

6:00 PM: Doors open, light snacks and beverages will be provided
6:30 PM: Program begins
6:45 PM: Film starts
8:00 PM: Discussion, Q&A Period
9:00 PM: Program ends

Panelists

Ramón Antonio Victoriano-Martinez (Arturo) was born in the Dominican Republic, where he graduated with a B.A. in Law at the Universidad Católica Santo Domingo. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in the area of Hispanic and Latin American Literatures in 2010. After graduation he taught in the Department of Language Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga, and in the Caribbean Studies Program and the Latin American Studies Program at the University of Toronto from 2011 to 2019. His primary area of research are the literatures and cultures of the Hispanic Caribbean with an emphasis on issues of race, gender, diaspora and national belonging. He is the author of Rayanos y Dominicanyorks: La dominicanidad del siglo XXI (Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2014).

Olumoroti (Moroti) Soji-George (he/they) is a curator, film theorist, writer and educator based In Vancouver, BC. Olumoroti is the curator at the Black Arts Centre in Surrey, BC and the artistic director of Gallery Gachet, located in downtown Vancouver. Olumoroti’s curatorial practice revolves around unravelling the nuances regarding the multifaceted ways Blackness is embodied in the arts and conceptualizing the way Black Contemporary artists present a post-modern perspective on the state of Blackness in the current world through their artworks. His research and curatorial practice also involve envisioning accessible and community-centred art spaces, highlighting the stories of individuals in communities who create new monumental environments by challenging the western status quo and state of being. He believes in the concept of art and risk and art itself as a form of risk. Additionally, he aims to explore the different visual and cultural narratives brewing in various communities regarding a police-free future, especially in relation to the Black Male Body. Moroti believes in using space to reflect the agency and lived experiences of individuals whose embodiments are not typically valued, respected and represented in traditional art and academic settings.

Nya Lewis Williams is a freelance curator, critic and lecturer who has worked with the Polygon Gallery, the Dunlop Gallery, Capture Photo Festival, Femme Art Review and Canadian Art, UBC Equity and Inclusion, SFU Contemporary, Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver Art Book Fair, Printed Matter. Her hybrid practice is a culmination of centuries of African resistance, love, questions, actions, study and embrace rooted in the theorization of the conditions of Black cultural production. Her curatorial practice similarly offers a continuation of a long lineage of work undertaken by Black artists, curators, writers, activists and thinkers who blaze(d) a trail of critical discourse surrounding the Black experience. Lewis’ creative practice reflects upon the diversity of Black diasporic experiences and its many forms of expression. As such, she works across the disciplines of art making, curating and writing. Her work is multivalent in form and expression but is always driven by the reimagining and reclaiming of community. She has also worked with Interim AD, is a year-round programmer at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, a guest programmer at the Vancouver International Film Festival, curator-in-residence at Grunt Gallery, a Research Assistant at the Center for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora, and has been a guest curator at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, and a guest artist at the Burrard Arts Foundation. She is a board member of BLAC, a co-director of Ref. Gallery of African Descent, and AfroQueer Vancouver.

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