Kate MacKay, associate film curator at BAM/PFA, will create several film series investigating the international evolution of resistance film-making, inspired in part by Intergration Report 1, The Battle of Algiers, Mueda Memoria e Massacre, and other ground-breaking works. MacKay researched film archives in Berlin, Havana, Tokyo, Paris, and Moscow in order to examine fully the pioneering and influential techniques used in resistance filmmaking. Her specific areas of inquiry included postcolonial African filmmaking; the influence of Brazilian Cinema Novo and Third Cinema movements; and radical films of the Japanese new wave from the 1960s and 70s; she also examined work by contemporary filmmakers and artists. MacKay will also collaborate with Berkeley faculty to design curricula that introduce these works to undergraduate and graduate students; with library staff, archivists and curators to create web-pages and digital slide shows that feature film program notes, stills, posters and related ephemera; and with translators who will make foreign resistance films accessible to English-speaking audiences.
Kate MacKay
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”