Scholar Erika Balsom and filmmaker Eric Baudelaire propose to explore how the revolutionary languages of the 1960s and 1970s – languages of documentary filmmaking, artistic expression and political action alike – resonate today. How have the energies of this moment persisted and mutated? How can they provide a resource for thinking through the urgencies of the present, for the future? In a moment when hope for political transformation feels increasingly necessary, what forms and acts can best respond to the need to re-imagine reality?

We’re thrilled to present Eric Baudelaire’s Also Known as Jihadi as part of the film selection of the pair’s UNDO FELLOWSHIP research topic, Languages of Liberation.

This program is a part of BREAK ꩜UT: A SYMPOSIUM OF SORTS, which celebrates the research, writing and filmmaking initiated during The UNDO Fellowship. We are excited to share the ideas and work resulting from the inaugural year of this endeavor and are eager to hear your questions, thoughts and feedback.

You’re invited to a series of screenings, study groups, and discussions spread over the first two weekends in March . Choose a single thread of inquiry, or weave the connections between them all. Tune into the stream to watch and listen in or fill out a simple application up for an UNDO STUDY GROUP to get the reader and join a rigorous and creative discussion.

Register for a reminder to catch our public Dialogue with Erika and Eric on March 7th for a full program experience. If you want to engage a draft of Erika’s writing and take an even deeper dive, our Languages of Liberation Study Group is open by application. Learn more and APPLY!

Eric Baudelaire’s award-winning film features the story of Aziz, a young man from the Parisian suburbs, and his journey to join al-Nusra Front in Aleppo to fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Aziz himself never appears throughout the film; his story is construed though the landscapes he saw in his life, from France to Syria and back, juxtaposed with documents—court records, police reports, surveillance and interrogation transcripts. The film’s title and genre both call on Masao Adachi’s A.K.A Serial Killer (1969), which interrogates a cinematographic approach known as landscape theory. Landscape theory, developed out of Marxist film criticism of the 1970s, posits that all surrounding landscape is an expression of dominant political power. Also Known as Jihadi was shot in multiple locations including France, Spain, Algeria, and the Syrian border in Turkey, and was produced in the aftermath of the Bataclan attacks that took place in Paris in October 2015.

Eric Baudelaire (1973, Salt Lake City) lives and works in Paris, France. After training as a social scientist, Baudelaire established himself as a visual artist often focused on social and historical research. Since 2010, he has devoted himself more seriously to filmmaking. His feature films include Also Known As Jihadi (2017), Letters to Max (2014), The Ugly One (2013) and The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images (2011).