Doors 7:30p
Program 8:00p

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

We are delighted to join hands with Sayre Quevedo for a night of documentary, as we listen and watch, reflect and explore the intricate ethical quandaries that inflect a documentary practice.

Sayre is an award-winning documentary artist working across mediums. His subjects are often platonic, familial, and romantic relationships. These relationships, he believes, are mirrors to our societies. They reflect back to us the unresolved issues within the larger culture including inherited trauma, the legacy of violence, and displacement and identity — our present, past, and future. The containers for these recorded works have taken the form of oral histories, verité documentary, and installation work — always with audio at its heart.

The event will feature a pair of short documentaries that represent the beginning and end of one chapter within Quevedo’s body of work, alongside a presentation of Quevedo’s Orexis: A Manifesto in 21 Questions which interrogates his documentary practice up until this point.

Quevedo will be joined by Avery Trufelman, host and creator of podcast Articles of Interest, to discuss his work following the presentation.

Program

Espera

13 mins, 2017

Espera is a short documentary told through an intimate conversation between Quevedo and an ex-lover. 

Orexis: A Manifesto in 21 Questions

“Am I alone?” This is the question that begins Orexis. The talk traces the tensions that inform Quevedo’s documentary practice and his life, and invites the audience to do the same. The 21 questions touch on the material and philosophical dimensions of documenting a life and what it means, and if it’s possible, to do the work truthfully.

Distances

A work in progress, 2024

Three lovers. Three conversations. A short documentary about gay men in love.

Program Duration: 60 mins

Bios

Sayre Quevedo is a documentary artist. He works across mediums to tell stories about intimacy, identity, and human relationships. Quevedo began as a reporter with Youth Radio in Oakland, California at the age of 15. Since then his work has been featured on National Public Radio, Marketplace, BBC Short Cuts, Love Me on the CBC, The Barbican, McSweeney’s and Radio Atlas. In 2018 his audio documentary short Espera received the Third Coast/RHDF Directors’ Choice Award and his audio documentary feature The Quevedos was nominated for a Best Audio Documentary award by the International Documentary Association (IDA). The following year he won the 2019 Third Coast/RHDF Gold Award for Best Documentary for The Return. That feature was also nominated for a Best Audio Documentary award by the IDA, his second nomination two years in a row. In 2022 Quevedo was nominated twice by the IDA for Best Stand-Alone Audio Documentary, winning the award for Documenting a Death by Euthanasia. Quevedo was the Fall 2019 Podcaster-In-Residence for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He was an Associate Producer for The Daily at The New York Times and NPR’s Latino USA and a Producer for VICE News. He currently teaches at Columbia University’s Oral History program and at New York University’s Journalism Institute.

Lucy Little is a multidisciplinary musician, improvisor, composer, and audio producer based in NYC. Their musical practice lives on the edge of many styles, inspired by a lifelong exploration of storytelling through the interplay of music, sound, and narrative. They often write and perform for theatrical productions and podcasts, including recent original scores for the Audible Original plays Daddies (2022) and Marrow (2023), and most recently as the violinist/vocalist with the Emmy Award winning theater company Manual Cinema’s 2023 production of “A Christmas Carol” in Chicago. They play violin with the Chicago-based indie rock and folk project Half Gringa, have an electroacoustic solo project, and have performed with musicians around the country and the world, including Aisha Burns, Dani Larkin, MICHA Música, Afarin Nazarijou, and more. Lucy holds a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, a Bachelor’s from the University of Chicago, is an U.S. Fulbright alum and a 2022 OneBeat Fellow.

Avery Trufelman is the host and creator of Articles Of Interest, a show about what we wear. When it premiered in 2018, Articles of Interest was named one of best podcasts of the year by the BBC, LAist, New York Magazine, and the New Yorker, among many others. Previously Avery worked for New York Magazine, where she hosted The Cut’s podcast, as well as two seasons of Nice Try! from Curbed. Before that, Avery worked as staff producer for seven years on the design podcast 99% Invisible. She’s learning how to drive.