Tamer Hassan and Armand Yervant Tufenkian will join us to share a special screening of their feature Accession. Mubi says, “filmmakers Hassan and Tufenkian have done more than just bemoan the slow fading away of a ritual—the careful and deliberate cultivation and digging of the earth—that is as old as we are, but have also contributed, by celebrating the unassuming diligence of those carrying on, their own elegiac visual love letter to the inventory.  ”

Shooting for more than five years in 13 locations around the U.S., they traced a collection of letters to the homes where each was sent or received in this epistolary celebration of the small scale and the analogue. The letters, written to accompany seed packets sent between friends and families that date as far back as 1806, are read aloud by individual narrators, unfolding as personal-poetic reflections on life and labor in rural America. Via a variety of 16mm film stocks, Accession maps a visual and aural correspondence between anonymous people and places with an exploratory flair. The program will begin with a short early collaboration from Tamer and Armand that explores similar themes.

We are also very excited to be screening The Blind Labourer (2016) by Jessica Sarah Rinland.

The Blind Labourer examines the similarities and contrasts within the whaling and lumber industry. The film edits together archive footage of laborers in the forests, at sea and in factories, felling trees, cutting whales and developing their multiple products for society and scientific studies. The film rejects the idea that beings can be ranked according to their relative value, and explores each micro and macro forms’ effect on one other.

Join us for this special screening and a conversation following with Tamer and Armand in attendance, moderated by Jacqueline Pilati.

Tamer Hassan is a filmmaker, film editor, cinematographer and teacher. His work has been exhibited at Lincoln Center, Viennale, Mar Del Plata International Film Festival, EXPO Chicago, Mana Contemporary, and elsewhere. He recieved an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been a fellow at UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art and The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. His work as an editor and cinematographer has been exhibited at Anthology Film Archive, Oberhausen Film Festival, Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, and elsewhere. He currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Armand Yervant Tufenkian is a first-generation Armenian-American filmmaker. His work has screened most recently at the Viennale, Art of the Real at Lincoln Center, Mar del Plata, Underdox, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje, among others. He did doctoral studies in philosophy, poetics, and film at Duke University and studies in fine arts at the California Institute of the Arts. He lives near Los Angeles, where he is working on a new film titled In the Manner of Smoke.

Jacqueline Pilati is a Professional Development Instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and Adjunct Instructor at Bank Street College of Education where she leads teacher institutes and courses in garden-based learning and elementary science investigations. She has taught in general and special education settings throughout NYC and Sonora, Mexico. During her tenure in the nonprofit space, she developed and led childhood, youth, and adult programming around urban ecology, scientific inquiry, food justice. In 2018, she founded Reclaim Seed NYC, an urban seed initiative rooted in education and community. The project stewards community-sustained seed for the commons, while educating and organizing for seed and food sovereignty. Reclaim Seed NYC reconnects people to their foodways through history, education, and seed. The project can be followed @reclaimseednyc