Friday April 24, 11 AM – 1 PM
Details will be provided to registered participants
During the workshop, we will discuss the US colony of Puerto Rico as a fertile case study for unpacking a multitude of intersecting socio-political forces–disaster capitalism, colonialism, austerity, climate change, and popular protest–that are directly relevant to the current pandemic. How does climate change accelerate pre-existing issues of colonialism and economic justice, and how can frontline communities affected by disaster be approached as crisis experts instead of victims? How do we make art during times of disaster, and what possibilities does it offer for political organizing and collectivity? In this moment when the future is so illegible, how do we imagine and fight for the worlds we want?
Cecilia Aldarondo is a documentary director-producer from the Puerto Rican diaspora who makes films at the intersection of poetics and politics. Her work has been supported by ITVS, HBO, A&E, the Sundance Institute, Cinereach, Firelight Media, Field of Vision, IFP, the Jerome Foundation, and many others. Her debut documentary Memories of a Penitent Heart had its World Premiere at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and was broadcast on POV in 2017. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2017 Women at Sundance Fellow, two-time MacDowell Colony Fellow, and recipient of a 2019 Bogliasco Foundation Residency. In 2019 she was named to DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 list and is one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film for 2015. She teaches at Williams College.
Lale Namerrow Pastor is a woman and transfeminist person. Born in Rió Piedras and raised in Puerto Nuevo to a Dominican mother and absent father, they completed undergraduate studies in Photography and Art History at the University of Puerto and continued academic studies in Film Production and Direction at the New York Film Academy in New York City. Lale currently resides in Puerto Rico, where they are a distinguished musical curator in the subversive queer/cuir scene, archival researcher, and audio visual producer. Among so much, they are Caribbean, activist, videographer, editor, advisor, partner, marica, bucha, troublemaker, and possibly everything that fits between those labels.