Doors 7:30p
Program 8:00p
Tickets $12

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

On June 24, we’re delighted to host filmmaker Courtney Stephens and scholar John Durham Peters for an evening of conversation about divination, chance, and fortune in the American mythos. Courtney will present on cinematic configurations of chance and control, while John will explore the divinatory dimensions of weather, forecasting, and watching the sky.

A discussion will follow their presentations and will inform an ongoing research project between Courtney Stephens and writer / editor Julia Gunnison.

Program Duration: 60 mins

Bios

Courtney Stephens is a writer/director. Her work has explored historical geographies, the public unconscious, and the texture of women’s lives. The American Sector, her documentary (co-directed with Pacho Velez) about fragments of the Berlin Wall transplanted to the US, was named one of the best films of 2021 in The New Yorker. Her essay film, Terra Femme, comprised of amateur travel footage shot by women in the early-twentieth century, premiered at The Museum of Modern Art, and has toured internationally. Invention, a work of experimental fiction, recently premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. Her films have been exhibited at The National Gallery of Art, The Barbican, The Royal Geographical Society, Walker Art Center, the Thailand Biennale, and in film festivals including the Berlinale, Viennale, IDFA, Hong Kong, SXSW, and the New York Film Festival. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Wexner Center.

Julia Gunnison is a writer, editor, and arts administrator based in Brooklyn, New York. Her essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Reverse Shot, Screen Slate, and Bright Wall/Dark Room, and her interests include nonfiction film forms and cinematic interpretations of urban space. She is an alumna of the 2024 Film at Lincoln Center Critics Academy, and the 2023–24 Reverse Shot Emerging Critics Workshop. She is the co-founder and editor of Syllabus, a weekly publication for nontraditional syllabi.  Julia is currently the Artist Initiatives Manager at Creative Capital, and was previously Coordinator for the Sundance Documentary Fund. She serves as a grant application reviewer for the Sundance Institute, the International Documentary Association, and the Catapult Film Fund.

John Durham Peters teaches and writes on media history and philosophy. He is the María Rosa Menocal Professor of English and of Film & Media Studies at Yale University. He taught at the University of Iowa between 1986-2016. He is the author of Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication, Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition, and most recently, The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media.