Curators: UnionDocs & Emile Klein

Organizer: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock

Exhibition Location: Lipani Gallery

Exhibition Dates: June 8 – October 2, 2017 / 9am – 9pm

This Summer, Fordham University partners up with Brooklyn-based documentary center UnionDocs to present Sit Beside Me: Between Other and Author. UnionDocs (UnDo) presents six short documentaries culled from the archive, exploring the inviting relationship between the filmmaker and the subject. The films were produced within the Collaborative Studio, UnDo’s annual fellowship program throwing international artists, journalists, and new media makers together to explore the outer bounds of documentary art.

Nearly a decade going, the Collaborative Studio has produced over 50 short documentaries, centered around a theme presented for exploration by UnionDocs. In search of a new thread, we’ve discovered Sit Beside Me. Six unknowingly interwoven works, born in different times, silently broaching the same question: what is the unspoken relationship between the documentarian and people who open their lives to the world?

Together for the first time within the Lipani Gallery, the series trounces across a garden of cinematic approaches and themes. From a dotingly vibrant animation spun to a blind beatnik’s Homeric enthusiasm, to a lens that glances NYC’s masses with the searching eye of a lost lover, to the respectful distance in re-living a tenant’s toughest battle. Within this cornucopia of aesthetic approaches, we uncover ways to commune and embrace with life, projected and personal.

Including works from directors Tina Antolini, Mariangela Ciccarello, Constanza Mirré, Marina Lameiro, Livia Vonaesch, Shawn Wen, and Tracie Williams.

An unlikely encounter in New York City with a family of Southern Italian immigrants returns the filmmaker to her origins, to unresolved questions about her identity and to models of femininity she tried to escape.

A 24-hour candy store in New York City becomes a refuge for two young artists seeking wisdom from the owner, an 84 year-old Iranian refugee who hasn’t taken a night off in almost 43 years.

Love you Madly is an animated, experimental short documentary film shaped by the encounters and conversations with Mr. Steve Cannon – a playwright, mentor, poet, and retired professor – who has been a fixture of the Lower East Side art scene since the 1960’s.

A unique event reflects the passage of time in the tight knit community of Los Sures.

Several New Yorkers speculate on the nature of love, the vastness of New York City, and the enduring allure of the popular concept “love at first sight.”

By delving into a desolate space, 300 Nassau depicts the fragility and limits of the human condition.