SERIES

MIZNA FILM SERIES

Fourth Wednesdays at the Trylon

The Mizna Film Series is a monthly selection of programs, marking Mizna’s first venture into year-round curated film programming. While the annual Film Festival organized by the St. Paul-based organization focuses primarily on the works of contemporary artists, the Mizna Film Series provides a space to expand Mizna’s regular film programming to include screenings, critical essays, filmmaker interviews, and discussions exploring revolutionary forms of cinema from the Southwest Asia and North Africa region and beyond. This series is presented virtually and in-person in collaboration with the Trylon Cinema.

For the first screenings, Mizna highlights recently restored classics. Film histories often exclusively highlight the works of Hollywood filmmakers and European auteurs, and these limited histories are maintained through practices of film restoration and preservation. Organizations like Cineteca di Bologna and Janus Films are part of a movement to restore, digitize, distribute, and exhibit films that expand our understanding and vision of cinema’s past.

Mizna kicks off the spring season March 24, 2021 with a screening of An Unusual Summer (2020) by Kamal Aljafari. The spring segment continues April 28 with Al Asleyeen (2017) by Marwan Hamed and May 26 with Empty Metal by Bayley Sweitzer and Adam Khalil. The film selections depict, critique, and engage with the impacts and meaning of surveillance technologies––those we know about, those we only think we know about, and those we willingly participate in every time we pick up our devices. Acknowledging the realities of corporate and governmental forms of surveillance, violence, and control, these films also explore the banality of the modern surveillance state and our complicity within it.