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Event Archive

The Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts hosts a variety of events throughout the year. View the drawers below for a list of past events.

2024


  • Jan 13, 2024 | SURAJ ISRANI MEMORIAL LECTURE: Discussion with Oscar-nominated filmmaker, Sara Dosa
    • About: The Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts at UC San Diego is pleased to invite you to the Suraj Israni Memorial Lecture with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sara Dosa. Sara Dosa is an Oscar-nominated nonfiction filmmaker whose work centers on the human relationship with non-human nature. The films she has directed have won a Peabody and the Directors’ Guild of America Awards, among others, and have been nominated for an Academy Award,  BAFTA and Independent Spirit Award. Dosa’s work has been shown at festivals worldwide including Sundance, SXSW, New Directors/New Films, CPH:DOX and Visions du Réel, among others, and has screened in partnership with museums such as the MOMA, The Academy Museum, BAMPFA and The Louvre.Most recently, Dosa directed the Academy Award nominated "Fire of Love," which premiered on Opening Night of Sundance 2022 where it won the Editing Award and was acquired by National Geographic Films.
    • Speaker: Sara Dosa, filmmaker
  • Feb. 3, 2024 | DISCUSSION AND Q&A: "What Music Brings to the Movies"
    • About: Join alumnus Jonathan Sacks for a discussion of his distinguished career as a composer and orchestrator. Learn about what music brings to movies as Jonathan discusses his work in Toy Story 3, Mr. Holland's Opus, and other film favorites.
    • Speaker: Jonathan Sacks, composer
  • Feb. 24, 2024 | PANEL DISCUSSION AND Q&A: Entertainment Insiders Roundtable: How to Break into the Business
    • About: Attend this special event, featuring roundtable group discussions with UC San Diego alumni and industry executives and creatives. Gain insider information about working in entertainment, how to make the transition from college to creative professional and what you should know before starting out in the industry. Bring your questions, notebooks and get ready for an interactive discussion in a group setting.
    • Speakers:
      • Marty Adelstein: agent, manager and producer
      • Lauren Craig: screenwriter, film consultant, producer and former development executive
      • Tonya Mantooth: CEO and film festival artistic director 
      • Chris Thomes: multi-Emmy-award winning executive creative director and producer
  • Mar. 15, 2024 | FILM SCREENING SERIES: "Water for Life"
    • About: COMM140, "Cinema Latin America," is putting on a special event in conjunction with the San Diego Latino Film Festival on March 15th at 6pm. The event is a screening of "Water for Life", a new film that highlights the courageous struggle of three water defenders in El Salvador, Honduras, and Chile. This is the first time that the San Diego Latino Film Festival has had an official screening on campus since 1997. The event will feature some live music, a screening of the film, a Q&A with director Will Parrinello, and a reception.
    • Speakers: Will Parrinello
    • Partners: Department of Communication, Film Studies Program, Department of Ethnic Studies, Department of Latin American Studies, 8th College, Eleanor Roosevelt College, Department of Visual Arts
  •  Apr. 6, 2024: FILM SCREENING SERIES: "Rally"
    • About: You're invited to a film screening of the documentary "Rally" followed by a discussion with the filmmaker. Through this portrait of Rose Pak in the documentary “Rally,” we witness the backroom dynamics of city politics, the rise of civil-rights engagement within Chinese American communities since the 1970s, as well as the distrust, discontent and discrimination from white liberals. Tensions emerge, allyships form, and the rest is the tale of a woman who decisively was the spine of San Francisco’s Chinatown.
    • Speakers:
      • Rooth Tang, filmmaker
      • Host: Wentao Ma, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Literature
    • Partners:  Institute of Arts and Humanities Film Studies Program, Institute of Arts and Humanities Chinese Studies Program, the Department of Communication and the Department of Visual Arts
  • Apr. 12, 2024 " FILM SCREENING SERIES: "Star Choir"
    • About: The Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts at UC San Diego invites you to a special film screening of "Star Choir" followed by a discussion and reception. In this cosmic opera by artists and UC San Diego Department of Visual Arts faculty Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade, a starship crew seeks refuge on the hostile planet 85K: Aurora. As the planet defends itself from the crew’s invasive presence, the humans evolve to become a part of a queerly multi-species organism that covers the entire world. Produced by The Industry, an experimental company that expands the operatic form in Los Angeles, this film chronicles Star Choir’s live premiere in fall 2023 at the historic Mt. Wilson Observatory, where an ensemble cast and orchestra performed inside the 100-inch telescope.
    • Speakers:
      • Malik Gaines, film producer, artist, Department of Visual Arts faculty
      • Alexandro Segade, film producer, artist, Department of Visual Arts faculty
  • Apr. 27, 2024 | PANEL DISCUSSION AND Q&A: Careers in Animation and Video Games
    • About: Enjoy a panel discussion exploring the careers of creators and recruiters in the animation, film and video game industries. Lead by UC San Diego alumnus and animator Marty Davis, panelists will discuss their work and career path, sharing insight, advice and answering questions from the audience. Don't miss this exclusive opportunity to connect with professionals in these fields and learn how to jump start your own career!
    • Speakers:
      • Marty Davis '20, animator, illustrator and sculptor
      • Mike Dietz: artist/animator
      • GeRon Thompson: animation and video game industry recruiter
      • Carlo Sansonetti: senior engineering manager
      • Jeff Ranjo: storyboard artist and character designer 
    • Partners: SoCal Cineforum
  • Oct. 12, 2024 | Inaugural Fellowship Forum
    • About: The Fellowship Forum brings together a unique community of over a dozen student, faculty, staff and alumni creators from UC San Diego, highlighting and celebrating diverse artistic visions and inspiring new definitions of cinematic art. The forum will showcase projects through a 3-part series of 45-minute segments, each including mini film screenings and panel discussions, and concluding with a reception of light refreshments. Fellow projects span an impressive range from narratives of conflict and violence in Columbia’s mining industry, to a philosophical deepfake of Drew Barrymore, a drama of COVID-19 resilience, to a cosmic opera and so much more. 
    • Speakers:
      • Host and Moderator: Michael Trigilio, Faculty Director
      • Moderator: Alena Williams, Faculty
      • Moderator and Fellow: Daisuke Miyao, Faculty
      • Fellows:
        • Jalal Al-Marashi Jaffer '24, Alumni
        • Cuyler Ballenger, Graduate Student
        • Zeinabu Davis, Faculty
        • Yingjie Fei, Graduate Student
        • Emily Greenberg, Graduate Student
        • Todd Henry, Faculty
        • Zakary Hori '24, Alumni 
        • Ashley Jones '24, Alumni
        • Lev Kalman, Staff
        • Luciana Marcos Laberge, Staff
        • Rida Qadeer '24, Alumni
        • Alexandro Segade, Faculty
  • Nov. 9, 2024 | ALUMNI EVENT: Tritons of the Video Game Industry
    • About: Curious about a career in the video game industry? Join us for this special event! The Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts at UC San Diego, in partnership with Triton Gaming, Triton Esports and Alumni Relations, invites you to a panel discussion with UC San Diego alumni working in the video game industry.Panelists will discuss their current roles and career paths, offer advice, share insight and answer questions from the audience.Don't miss this exclusive opportunity to connect and network with professionals in the field.
    • Speakers:
      • Isaac Smith '23: Production Coordinator and former QA Analyst, Sony Interactive
      • Cody Christie '12: Director of Growth, Riot Games
      • Stephanie Yoon '07: Senior Quest Designer, Blizzard Entertainment
      • Jeremy Spencer '12: Staff Technical Program Manager, Sony Interactive (previously Trion Worlds (Defiance))
      • Dusty Greer, '19: Recruiting Coordinator at PlayStation Studios:
      • Marty Davis '20: Animator, Illustrator, Sculptor (Moderator)
    • Partners: Triton ESports, Triton Gaming, Alumni Relations

2023

  • Jan. 21, 2023 | SURAJ ISRANI MEMORIAL LECTURE: "Utopian Bodies, Disaporic Distance: Embodied Performance in Black Panther"
    • About: A flurry of articles appearing shortly after the "Black Panther" release proffered different, even opposed, readings of its politics, all of which centered on its “villain,” Erik Killmonger. To understand the movie’s politics, it seems, one had to understand Killmonger — the pervading question was: Should Killmonger be regarded as representative, and if he is (or if he isn’t), what is he representative (or not representative) of? To think this through, though, one has to move beyond the script (what the movie says) to think about Black Panther as an aesthetic, phenomenological, and rhetorical experience (what it does). Identification is crucial to cinematic rhetoric, and performance is crucial to identification. T’Challa and Killmonger don’t just espouse ideological positions, they struggle to articulate or understand their place in the world; and Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan contribute mightily to our awareness of their struggles. Here and in his earlier roles, Jordan gives us gentle, fundamentally decent characters who can hardly catch a break, in stark contrast to the regality of Chadwick Boseman’s characters, who are confident, entitled.
    • The first half of Professor Scott Bukatman's talk will focus on these two performances and the ways they complicate simple dichotomies of meaning. Then, to fully appreciate Boseman’s contribution, Bukatman will explore the body of Black superheroes historically, as well as the projection of presence that Boseman brings to the screen. The quest for role models that “look like me” usually refers to moral rather than physical strength; physical strength is generally valued as a manifestation of moral strength. But it’s possible to skip the “moral” part and still have something to identify with: a corporeal rather than a moral identification. There’s more at stake than “balanced” representation and moral positivity in the intersection of Black (and other Other) bodies with superhero bodies. There’s also the ability to display power in what might seem like the least radical of terms: the power to be seen, to be seen as you choose to be, the power to fight, the power to fight back, the power to imagine alternative ways of being, and embody new ways of belonging in the world.
    • Speaker: Scott Bukatman, Professor of Film and Media Studies, Stanford University
  • Feb. 2, 2023 | MEDIA CARE TALK SERIES: "The Data Pharmacy"
    • About: This talk explores three insights from Joshua Neves' current research and collaborations examining cultures of optimization and the entanglement of big data and big pharma. One key starting point for this work is what Paul Preciado, in Testo Junkie, calls somatechnics to describe processes whereby media technologies are not merely added to or encountered by bodies/subjects – as with McLuhanist “extensions” or ideas about spectatorship, and the like – but are rather “the very means by which corporeality is crafted.” While Preciado’s main concerns are the operations of sexuality and subjection under the new biocapitalism, his recognition that pharmaceutical and digital media industries are crucial to the reproduction of the present has yet to be taken seriously by media theorists. Building on these and related debates, this brief presentation focuses on somatechnics and three aspects of our techno-pharmacological condition – or what this lecture series terms media care – namely: changes in how we understand and perform resilience; the critical role of stimulation in animating modes of media enfleshment; and emergent forms of mood conditioning. These insights do not promise a comprehensive view, but rather signal intensifying relations between data and drugs in practices of self-making, wellness, and work.
    • Speakers:
      • Guest: Joshua Neves, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair, Concordia University
      • Respondent: Daisuke Miyao, Professor and Hajime Mori Chair in Japanese Language and Literature, UC San Diego
      • Host: Wentao Ma, Ph.D. student, Department of Literature, UC San Diego
    • Partners: Film Studies Program
  • Feb. 8, 2023 | FILM SCREENING SERIES: "Black Italy in Film"
    • About: Screening and conversation with Filmmakers Antonio Dikele Distefano and Fred Kuwornu. Hailing from Ravenna, Milan based filmmaker Antonio Dikele Distefano is the director of "Autumn Beat" and screenwriter of the Netflix Italia miniseries "Zero". He is the author of five novels and founder of Esse Magazine, the largest rap publication in Italy. "Autumn Beat" (2022) produced by Amazon Studios and co-produced by Indiana Productions follows two brothers, Tito and Paco, who have the same dream: to break into the rap music world. Paco is a born performer and Tito knows how to write like no other but ambition, life, and love for the same woman will test their bond. The film, which spans three-decades, has a cast mostly made up of Italian actors of African descent. Fred Kudjo Kuwornu is an Italian-Ghanaian filmmaker, activist, educator, and producer. Founder of production company Do The Right Films, Fred is best known for his direction of documentaries such as "Blaxploitalian," "Inside Buffalo," and "18 IUS SOLI". Kuwornu is a Diversity and Inclusion consultant for Netflix Italy. Read more about Fred and Antonio at bsp.ucsd.edu."Autumn Beat" by Antonio Dikele Distefano.
    • Speakers:
      • Antonio Dikele Distefano, filmmaker, screenwriter, author
      • Fred Kuwornu,  filmmaker, activist, educator, and producer
    • Partners: Black Studies Project, European Studies

  • Feb. 11, 2023 | FILM SCREENING SERIES: "Black Mama, White Mama" (1973)
    • About: Intimate film screening and conversation about representation and resistance with Noelle Sepina, Ph.D. candidate in the UC San Diego Department of Ethnic Studies. Before actress Pam Grier became known for her iconic roles in Blaxploitation films "Coffy" (1973) and "Foxy Brown" (1974), she was cast in a number of exploitation films made in the Philippines. One of the most successful and popular of these films was "Black Mama, White Mama" (1973) directed by Eddie Romero – a National Artist of the Philippines for Film. Although "Black Mama, White Mama" has been classified within the women-inprison subgenre, elements of blaxploitation – specifically the appropriation of Black Power rhetoric and aesthetics – are evident in Grier’s character and performance. In this film, Grier represented Black women’s challenge to gender, race, and class hierarchy during the 1970s. Looking at the film through the lens of blaxploitation allows new audiences to see the contributions of the Philippines and Filipino filmmakers to Black cinema as well as the global influence of Black culture in general and the Black Power Movement in particular. This screening will help to revive Grier’s earlier work and spark conversations about the complicity with anti-blackness in the Philippines and possibilities for cross-racial, international solidarity between Black Americans and Filipinos in the present. After the film screening, there will be a reception where participants have an opportunity to share their thoughts about the film through curated conversation. We will focus on the theme of representation, specifically of Black and Filipino women and the Philippines, and resistance through filmmaking in order to think about the cultural impact of this film and Pam Grier’s work during the 1970s and the present. The insight gained from the discussion will support Noelle Sepina’s dissertation project, "Made in the Philippines: Blaxploitation and Transnational Collaborations in the Marcos Era." This event is in conversation with the recent retrospective exhibit " Pam Grier: Foxy, Fierce and Fearless" at the British Film Institute curated by Dr. Mia Mask and the current exhibit "Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898-1971" at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. 
    • Speakers: Noelle Sepina, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Ethnic Studies, UC San Diego
    • Partners: Black Studies Project
  • Feb. 18, 2023 | FILM SCREENING SERIES: Indigenous Film Festival Initiative
    • About: The Indigenous Film Festival Initiative is organized by the Latin American Studies program with the collaboration of the Suraj Israni Cinematic Center. Screenings are held in presence of the filmmakers and discussions after the projection. FIlms: Flores de llanura (2021) 19 min by Mariana Xochiquétzal Rivera García and Cheran (2022) 90 min. by Victor Arroyo.
    • Speakers:
      • Mariana Xochiquétzal Rivera García, filmmaker
      • Victor Arroyo, filmmaker
    • Partners: Latin American Studies Program

  • Feb. 27, 2023 | MEDIA CARE TALK SERIES: "The Far Voice"
    • About:  “The Far Voice” describes the rise of mass telecommunication therapies, focusing on the suicide crisis hotline (originated by Protestant clergy) in England and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and investigates how this service first became thinkable, and then widely adopted and used. I redescribe the hotline as psychoreligious in origin and intent, rather than as the secular service it has usually been assumed to be. I argue that these services, in their use of the peer-to-peer modality, radically upset former regimes of pastoral care and counseling, as well as those of psychodynamic therapy. Hotlines generate a new, hyper-transient frame for the helping encounter, removing nearly all the traditional aspects of the therapeutic setting except for speech and listening. At the same time, these hotlines devalue the need for expertise and rescind the fee associated with that expertise. They challenge every clinical concept associated with the structure and dynamic of the analytic encounter. It is contingent, it is not in person, and requires (or permits) a distanced intimacy with no guarantee of repeating; and it makes use of the phone—an appliance paradoxically thought of as capable of bringing people together and as responsible for their greater alienation. I will conclude by examining the afterlives of these radical early hotlines in our contemporary, when algorithmic surveillance, datafication, and tracking have relinked the hotline with forced hospitalization and carceral intervention.
    • Speakers: 
      • Guest: Hannah Zeavin, Assistant Professor, Indiana University
      • Respondent: Alain J.-J. Cohen, professor, Department of Literature, UC San Diego
      • Host: Wentao Ma, Ph.D. student, Department of Literature, UC San Diego 
    • Partners: Film Studies Program
  • Mar. 4, 2023 | FILM SCREENING SERIES: Standard Fantastic – Transborder Film Fellowship
    • About: The Standard Fantastic-Transborder Film Fellowship provides youth in the US/MX transborder region with resources and six months of mentorship to produce a short analog 16mm film. The inaugural Fellows and projects for 2022/23 are Jafet Arzate (Las Señales Ya No Están en el Cielo / The Signs Are No Longer in the Sky) and Marinthia Gutiérrez (She Stays / Ella Se Queda).
    • Speakers:
      • Omar Lopex, Jafet Arzate, Marinthia Gutierrez (inaugural fellows)
  • Mar. 10, 2023 | MASTERCLASS-  Celestial Histories and Storytelling through Film: Alternative documentary approaches for the humanities 
    • About: This masterclass is aimed at scholars in the humanities and social sciences of all stages in search of alternative (non-text based) methodologies and narrative forms. Independent documentary maker Christiane Burkhard will present methodologies such as constellation and excavation metaphors, journaling, periphery perspectives, object history, collage-making, and word-play. Sabrina Almandoz (director, screenwriter, editor and producer) will discuss the stages of working with academics in the processes of montage and editing. Finally, five historians of science from Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil will share their own perspectives on how this low-cost yet highly committed approach to film making livens academic life. Participants: Sabrina Almandoz, Christiane Burkhard, Miruna Achim, Thomas Haddad, Andrés Vélez, Marina Rieznik, Nydia Pineda. The March 10 masterclass and March 11 screenings are part of a week-long series of events for the project "American Skies: Celestial Images as Technologies of Cultural Transfer" created by Nydia Pineda de Ávila, UC San Diego.
    • Speakers:
      • Christiane Burkhard, Sabrina Almandoz, Miruna Achim, Thomas Haddad, Andrés Vélez, Marina Rieznik, Nydia Pineda
    • Partners: Department of History, Latin American Studies Program, Science Studies Program
  • Mar. 11, 2023 | FILM SCREENING: Cielos Americanos: Film screenings and discussion
    • About: Through intimate perspectives, historians and philosophers of science from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Italy reflect about the meaning of historical celestial images through their own imagination, sensations, longings, identities and affects. This collective work is also an exploration of the silenced motivations or interrogation in academic work. The series of eight short films will be presented by Sabrina Almandoz and Christiane Burkhard, the two independent film makers who inspired the cinematic languages and guided the production of the project "American Skies: Celestial Images as Technologies of Cultural Transfer."The screening will conclude with a conversation with four of the Latin American authors.
    • Speakers: Participants: Sabrina Almandoz, Christiane Burkhard, Miruna Achim, Thomas Haddad, Andrés Vélez, Marina Rieznik, Nydia Pineda
    • Partners: Department of History, Latin American Studies Program, Science Studies Program
  • Mar. 14, 2023 | MEDIA CARE TALK SERIES: "When Does Care Become Cruel? Rethinking Care with Animals in 3 Scenes"
    • About: When does care become cruel? Caring for semi-wild orangutans entails hitting them in order to make them averse to human contact because an ideal rehabilitated orangutan should avoid people instead of seeking them out. Caring for ex-circus lions, which are apex predators, hinges on both unequal land ownership and an attitude that some lives are naturally prey. Meanwhile, offering sanctuary to ex-dairy cows extends their lives to unknown durations and unknown geriatric health challenges. All of these cases suggest the difficulty of drawing a line between care and cruelty. This talk cautions against uncritical acceptance of what care is and what actions are done in its name. Biography Juno Salazar Parreñas is an associate professor of Science and Technology Studies and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University. She is the author of "Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation" (Duke UP, 2018), which received the 2019 Michelle Rosaldo Prize from the Association for Feminist Anthropology.
    • Speakers:
      • Guest: Juno Salazar Parreñas, associate professor of Science and Technology Studies and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Cornell University
      • Respondent: Pascal Gagneux, professor, Department of Anthropology, UC San Diego
      • Host: Wentao Ma, Ph.D. student, Department of Literature, UC San Diego
    • Partners: Film Studies Program, 21 Century China Center, Department of Communication, Department of Visual Arts, Department of Literature, Institute of Arts and Humanities
  • April 27, 2023 | MEDIA CARE TALK SERIES: "Ways to Care: Documentary Hard and Soft"
    • About: In this talk, Qian thinks about documentary as a caring medium: it mediates relationships across and around the camera, and out of such relationships, it creates attentional formations that make specific forms of care possible. In particular, Qian excavates documentary's important presence in the hard and soft film debate in China's 1930s. By discussing Cheng Bugao's docu-fictions as oppositional to the infotainment of the newsreel and the illusory transparency of the Capitalist process film, and by reading Liu Na'ou's home movies and travelogues as a colonial subject's search for grounding, connectivity, and horizontal relationships that could offer solace and protection, Qian shows that the hard and soft film camps, despite their pronounced differences, proposed complementary ways to care. Qian ends the talk with a 1940 docu-fiction, "The Light of East Asia," made in Chongqing on reforming Japanese POWs through theater and cinema. With this film, Qian thinks further about the potential of theater and film production to initiate transindividual processes of healing, on condition that such productions were democratically organized to practice equity and respect for all people involved in the process. 
    • Speakers: 
      • Guest: Ying Qian, associate professor of Chinese Film and Media, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
      • Respondent: Géraldine A. Fiss, associate teaching professor of Inter-Asia and Transpacific Studies: China Focus, Department of Literature, UC San Diego
      • Host: Wentao Ma, Ph.D. student, Department of Literature, UC San Diego
    • Partners: Film Studies Program, 21 Century China Center, Department of Communication, Department of Visual Arts, Department of Literature, Institute of Arts and Humanities
  • May 6, 2023 | FILM SCREENING AND PANEL DISCUSSION: Official Monkey Business production company
    • About: A film screening and panel discussion with Official Monkey Business LLC  and Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts Director Michael Trigilio.
    • Speakers: Conrad Jones and Amedeo Gallo
    • Partners: Alumni Relations, UC San Diego
  • May 18, 2023 | MEDIA CARE TALK SERIES: "The Blood Files: The Politics of Epidemic Media" 
    • About: Epidemic media can range from spanking new care affordances (like test-kits or self-check devices) to sophisticated aggregative technologies (disease surveillance networks like FluNet) and pioneering medical platforms (diagnostic and prognostic). Drawing on "The Virus Touch: Theorizing Epidemic Media" (forthcoming Duke UP, 2023), Ghosh argues that high epistemic value of "new," "smart," or "sophisticated" media habitually bypasses the significance of low-tech media crucial for the regulation and control of acute infection. Often located at clinical points of care, these media appear as mundane commodities circulating within global biomedical infrastructures; there seems nothing creative or innovative about them. Focusing on "patient files" as a case in point, Ghosh theorizes the ordinary "media care" of chronic infection at two HIV/AIDS health centers—the Site B clinic Khayelitsha (Cape Town) and Sanjeevani at Humsafar Trust (Mumbai). Following Cornelia Vismann (2008), Ghosh argues that files accumulative tendency readies these technologies for tracking infection beyond clinical confines. Files attune caregivers to the "interior milieu" of an individual patient but they are baggy enough to open into the greater disease milieu. As such, these are smart epidemic media that eschew an anthropocentric approach for a multispecies politics of health.   
    • Speakers:
      • Guest: Bishnupriya Ghosh, Professor, UC Santa Barbara
      • Respondent: Lisa Cartwright, Professor, Departments of Visual Arts and Communication, UC San Diego
      • Host: Wentao Ma, Ph.D. Student, Department of Literature, UC San Diego
    • Partners: Film Studies Program, 21 Century China Center, Department of Communication, Department of Visual Arts, Department of Literature, Institute of Arts and Humanities
  • May 19, 2023 | MASTERCLASS: Filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe
    • About: During this masterclass hosted by the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe will discuss his approaches to making movies about movies. The director of "Lynch/Oz" (2022), "78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene" (2017), and "Memory: The Origins of Alien" (2019) will talk about how his approach to documentary and cultural-commentary unfolds through research, production, and post-production. Philippe will discuss these aspects of his filmmaking practice, among others, with Center director Michael Trigilio.
    • Speakers:
      • Alexandre O. Philippe, Filmmaker
      • Michael Trigilio, Center Director
  • May 20, 2023 | FILM SCREENING SERIES: “Lynch/Oz” followed by Q&A with Alexandre O. Philippe 
    • About: The films of David Lynch and "The Wizard of Oz" have held a mirror to each other for decades. "Lynch/Oz" explores one of the most fascinating puzzles in the history of motion pictures: the enduring symbiosis between America’s primordial fairytale and David Lynch’s singular brand of popular surrealism.
    • Speakers:
      • Alexandre O. Philippe, Filmmaker
        Michael Trigilio, Center Director
    • Partners: Film Studies Program, Center for Hellenic Studies
  • Oct. 28, 2023 | PANEL DISCUSSION AND Q&A: "Storytelling: Envisioning the Future, Honoring the Past" with filmmakers and industry experts
    • About: Celebrate the history of filmed entertainment and take a look forward into the future of filmmaking and TV with a panel of industry experts and filmmakers. From the use of traditional celluloid to the advent of virtual production using LED walls, get insights from those who are innovating the entertainment industry while maintaining the foundations of exceptional storytelling.This panel discussion is part of an ongoing quarterly series presented by UC San Diego's Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts, the Office of Alumni Engagement, and the SoCal Cineforum. This series is dedicated to connecting San Diego students to the entertainment industry.
    • Speakers:
      • David Hartle, Production Executive
      • Chris Jones, Industrial and Light and Magic, Stagecraft
      • Phil Lelyveld, Program Lead at the Entertainment Technology Center @ USC
      • Mark Van Horne, Director, Production Services at Fotokem
      • Moderator: Chris Thomes, Producer & Creative Innovation Executive, Former VP Creative Services, Disney TV Studios
    • Partners: UC San Diego Office of Alumni Engagement, SoCal CineForum
  • Oct. 31, 2023 | Halloween Animated Film Festival
    • About: The Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts invites you to Halloween film festival! Watch a dozen "spooky" animated short films and hear from special guest Mike Dietz, stop-motion animator on the SpongeBob Holiday Specials, among many other credits.
    • Speakers:
      • Marty Davis '20, Independant illustrator
      • Mike Dietz, stop-motion animator
  • Nov. 3, 2023 | FILM SCREENING SERIES "God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines"
    • About: This film screening of God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with director Kristian Hill and producer Jennifer Washington. The story behind one of Detroit’s great contributions to world culture: Techno, the electronic music phenomenon created by Black artists in the 1980s that transformed dance music internationally and blossomed into the multi-billion dollar industry of EDM today.
    • Speakers:
      • Kristian Hill, Director
      • Jennifer Washington, Producer
    • Partners: Professor King Britt’s Blacktronika Series. Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music, honors all the innovators of color and their undeniable contributions to electronic music 
  • Nov. 17, 2023 | San Diego Environmental Film Festival: Opening Night
    • About: Join us for our 2nd Annual celebration of environmental, climate, people and arts storytelling! We will showcase some of the most awe-inspiring, hilarious, and tremendous films about air, land, water, and people. This year, our focus is on PEOPLE and ACTION and we are psyched to highlight and show stories that make us think, learn, and want to ACT. There is something for everyone at San Diego Environmental Film Festival. From thought-provoking stories, animation, and insight into the deepest caves, waters, and people's willingness to ACT, our lineup will entertain and make you jump out of your seats and ACT. Don't miss out on this year's unforgettable storytelling experience! 
    • Partners: John Muir College, Environmental Studies
  • Nov. 18-19, 2023 | San Diego Environmental Film Festival: All-day Screening Event, co-sponsored by the San Diego Environmental Film Festival, which is organized by the Environmental Studies Program and Muir College at UC San Diego.
  • Nov. 20, 2023 | DISCUSSION & Q&A: "The Russians are Coming: Leftist Spy-fi and Sci-fi in the Cold War Hong Kong"
    • About: Analyzing Cold War cultural products through a rigid binary framework such as western/eastern, capitalist/communist, democracy/dictatorship overlooks the intricate nuances in Hong Kong’s context. However, postcolonial concepts like “in-betweenness,” “hybridity,” or extraterritoriality” could not adequately capture the political subtexts within ambiguity. Films from both rightist and leftist studios appear politically ambiguous and innocuous, which can be attributed to colonial censorship, overseas markets, and the strategies employed by the People’s Republic of China. Despite that, these films bear their distinctive political rhetoric, tropes and motifs. This paper explores the production of the leftist spy-fi film The Stranger (Guai ke, 1979), produced by Bao Fang in the late 1970s. It explores how the film navigates the post-Cultural Revolution landscapes and articulates a popular genre to offer political comment on Soviet Union’s espionage during their studio’s financial hardship. 
    • Speakers: Dr. Raymond Tsang, Lecturer, University of Southern California
    • Partners: Film Studies Program, Department of Literature at UC San Diego

2022

  • Oct. 15, 2022 | OPENING EVENT
    • About: Campus leadership, faculty, staff, students and alumni joined invited guests for a welcome reception, photo opportunities and a special discussion.
    • Speakers:
      • Joanne Mony Park ‘10 filmmaker and alumni (Visual Arts)
      • M.G. Evangelista ‘10 filmmaker and alumni (Visual Arts)
  • Oct. 27, 2022 | MEDIA CARE TALK SERIES: “Care, Crisis, Cure: Sleep Must be Protected”
    • About: This talk maps the curious status of sleep as it breaks from its longstanding definition as interruption and absence. In the present moment, sleep emerges as a dynamic object of knowledge, shuttling between the position of problem and solution, crisis and cure, alarm and answer. It is marked by an ever-thickening tangle of discourses, interventions, and regulatory strategies. On the one hand, changing conceptions of the relationship between sleep and waking life instantiate a new stage in (bio)technological capacities and techniques of control. On the other hand, as the boundaries between sleep and wake are displaced and reinscribed, we are also presented with an opportunity to question the dominant systems of value that dictate waking existence. What can be preserved by carving out a space for sleep?
    • Speakers:
      • Guest: Jean Ma, Professor, Stanford University
      • Respondent: Brian Goldfarb, Associate Professor of Communication, UC San Diego
      • Host: Wentao Ma, Ph.D. Student, Department of Literature, UC San Diego
    • Partners: Film Studies Program
  • Oct. 28, 2022 | FELLOWSHIP WORKSHOP
    • About: Information about the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts fellowships.
    • Speakers: Michael Trigilio, Center director
  • Oct. 29, 2022 | FILM SCREENING SERIES: “To the Stars”
    • About: The Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts will be screening "To The Stars" by Department of Visual Arts Associate Professor Nicole Miller. "To the Stars" is an immersive exploration of identity, voice, pain, and possibility. The film, originally commissioned by SFMOMA in 2019, examines the transformative capacities of practice, rehearsal, and collaboration through scenes with prominent figures of color including Alonzo King's LINES ballet, NASA astronaut Yvonne Cagle, opera singer J'Nai Bridges, and others.
    • Speakers:  Nicole Miller, Associate Professor, Department of Visual Arts, UC San Diego
  • Nov. 5, 2022 | FILM SCREENING SERIES: Selections from the San Diego Underground Film Festival
    • About: San Diego Underground Film Festival (SDUFF) has quickly risen the ranks to become one of the nation's most challenging, nurturing, and down to earth film festivals. Known for taking risks on young talent alongside showcasing legendary filmmakers, SDUFF prides itself on being a festival by and for disciples of the moving image. Their curator, Department of Visual Arts alum Ryan Betschart ’09, has programmed a special selection of films from their upcoming 2022 festival.

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Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts opening

Grand Opening Event Slideshow

Campus leadership, faculty, staff, students and alumni joined invited guests Oct. 15, 2022 for the grand opening of the UC San Diego Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts. The event included a welcome reception, photo opportunities and a special discussion with filmmakers and Visual Arts alumni Joanne Mony Park ‘10 and M.G. Evangelista ‘10, led by center director Michael Trigilio (Visual Arts). 

View slideshow

Event Recordings

Missed an event? Watch it online! Select events have been recorded and are viewable on the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts YouTube playlist. Check back soon, as event recordings are uploaded on a rolling basis.

YouTube Playlist