Polygraph
The past year, in all its plague decay, has uncovered—as crises tend to—the potential for paradigm shifts. Writers much smarter than I am have already gorgeously noted the few but incredibly generative impacts of “these unprecedented times” on group consciousness. The pandemic has also forced the realm of entertainment to evolve. Art has always been a refuge in times of emergency, and we have had to largely withstand this period of isolation without the comfort that resides in the solidarity of coming together as an audience. Thankfully, movie theaters have once again begun to open in the United States. Just a few months ago, I got to take in John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence in 35mm at the Paris Theater. To sit in the dark with others and hold a bag of popcorn in my hands felt better than it ever has. Following the Warner Bros/HBO Max deal (announcing that the studio’s 2021 releases would stream on the platform the same day they’d premiere in theaters.) many people made the grim prognostication that the cinema-going experience really was dying.
I can’t deny that the current state of mainstream cinema is a bleak one. The industry heads and studio fat cats have implemented the disturbingly pernicious strategy of maintaining what the late Mark Fisher referred to as capitalist realism—the delusion that there is no alternative to the system. Billion-dollar films are being sold to the masses by re-corporealizing the classic cinematic iconography of the past into slick, lifeless remakes and reboots, so that viewers are lethally inebriated by a constant rush of weaponized nostalgia. Nothing original can survive. Those with power in the entertainment industry would like you to believe that this inundation of regurgitated slop is something to celebrate, and that it means that the future is here and now. But what these corporations are actually enacting is what Fisher termed “the slow cancellation of the future.” Jeff Bezos and Mickey Mouse want us to believe that there is no future, no alternative, so that they can lock us in the Disney Vault and escape our dying planet on a rocket ship.
Cynicism aside, there have been terrific displays of ingenuity and adaptability witnessed over the past year. To name just a handful of notable examples: the generous Cinema Worker Solidarity Fund that was put together in the early days of the pandemic, the reimagining of the New York Film Festival with the help of organizations like the Queens Drive In and Rooftop Films in providing outdoor venues, and free sidewalk screenings from venues like Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem and Syndicated in Brooklyn. Most radical and heartening, in my opinion, were Spectacle Theater’s Twitch presence, Another Gaze’s creation of Another Screen, their self-described “irregular streaming platform,” and the boundlessly innovative Prismatic Ground Festival spearheaded by programmer Inney Prakash. These endeavors showed cynics that streaming doesn’t have to be a dirty word.
Enter Dedza Films, another new initiative. Dedicated to distributing shorts and new works from under-represented and marginalized artists, Dedza is led by producer and distributor Kate Gondwe alongside writer and emergent filmmaker Aaron Hunt. Its initial intention was to aid in the circulation of films by rising filmmakers whose plans for releasing their shorts were impacted by COVID. Another aim is to bestow these short films with the attention and resources usually reserved for features. Similarly to how Prismatic Ground served to highlight experimental documentaries, a genre perhaps deemed niche by mainstream audiences, Dedza’s focus on short films amplifies the status of these works and their creators. “Part of what we want to do is find a way to monetize the short space and continue building a sustainable agreement for our filmmakers,” Gondwe told me.
The collective’s first release, supported by Kino Lorber, is an anthology of nine shorts, entitled Who Will Start Another Fire. A statement on their website reads, “The collection’s title alludes to Malawian poet Jack Mapanje’s ‘Before Chilembwe Tree’ (1981), in which he asks, ‘Who will start another fire?’ In other words, who will be the face of the next revolution? By omitting the question mark but retaining his language, we propose an answer to his question.” That said, Gondwe shrugged off the assumption that the project is inherently political. “As a Black person, while acquiring Black stories might seem political to some White people, it’s much more personal. What’s political to you is life to me.” The Dedza founder also disputed characterizing the project as “alternative,” stating, “I don’t think Dedza functions as an alternative distribution route. At the end of the day, distribution is just about bringing a film to a community. If you’re bringing films to an audience regardless of genre, runtime, box office, etc., you’re doing the magic of this industry. I think Black-owned and spaces that focus on underrepresented filmmakers get pushed as alternative spaces, which says something about how we view who holds power. This notion around alternative spaces needs to stop.”
Dedza’s mission reminded me of the vision of Amos Vogel, founder of Cinema 16 and the New York Film Festival. “His most fundamental urge was not simply to enjoy curating films he knew about, but to learn, for himself, what films there were, in addition to those that were being shown in theaters, and then to make them available to whoever might share his inquisitive spirit,” Scott MacDonald wrote in his essay Film Comes First, noting, “From the beginning Vogel organized his screenings so that they might function not simply as a series of revelations about one or another topic, but as a carefully organized meta-cinematic discourse.” Gondwe echoed a similar sentiment to me. “For this release, we didn’t specifically look for a thematic tie originally, but as we continued programming, it was apparent there was a connection between our titles. It’s beautiful to see them all in conversation with each other as one.”
In Nicole Amani Magabo Kiggundu’s sensitive Family Tree, a young Ugandan girl discovers just how expansive her family is after an accident sends her father to the hospital. Polygraph, written, directed by, and featuring Samira Saraya, explores the tensions in an Arab-Israeli lesbian relationship. Meanwhile, By Way of Canarsie by Emily Packer and Lesley Steele focuses on a Brooklyn community ravaged by Hurricane Sandy. It’s clear even from a glance that the stories Dedza Films has acquired all radiate with a palpable sense of place. Whether these locations are backgrounded or foregrounded within the focus of these films, we are nevertheless invited to spend a moment somewhere else, to consider landscapes or perspectives that might feel unfamiliar. In doing so, we do ourselves and the filmmakers that Dedza features the simple decency of broadening our notions of what cinema can give us.
Although things can feel quite precarious, I believe there’s never been a more fruitful time for cinema than right now. Cinema-goers, filmmakers, and distributors alike should take advantage of the myriad of possibilities available to us. We have the power to shape what we see, and it’s imperative that we use it.
By Way of Canarsie
Who Will Start Another Fire saw a theatrical (and virtual) run last month in theaters across New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and elsewhere. It will be released via Kino Lorber as a DVD on August 10th.