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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20121005
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20121026
DESCRIPTION:For our fifth annual collaborative film series\, the Walker an
 d the University of Minnesota focus on political documentaries produced ar
 ound the world\, most in the past few years. Yet in curating the series\, 
 we were looking back to the rise of fascism in Europe\, when German cultur
 al critic Walter Benjamin developed the concept of “emergency”: a mome
 nt of crisis wherein the forces of democracy were in retreat politically\,
  economically\, and culturally. As is characteristic of his thought\, the 
 term also designated responses to the crisis that allowed something hopefu
 l to emerge.  \n\nThis series explores\, from various angles\, the possibi
 lity that “urgency” is our name for such a moment\, but one running in
  reverse. In other words\, from the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring to 
 the anti-austerity protests\, the forces of democracy appear to be concent
 rating and accelerating—if not against fascism itself\, then at least a 
 later incarnation of the anti-democratic impulse it nurtured.  \n\nBenjami
 n was not alone in believing that cinema belongs decisively to such moment
 s of crisis. First\, it has the power to witness\, document\, and respond 
 with urgency to that which urgently calls for response. Second\, in its ca
 pacity to inscribe\, store\, recycle\, and re-present\, cinema’s archiva
 l power lends urgency to moments whose urgency has waned. Third\, it plung
 es distant strangers into the urgent stories of others—a power that is n
 ow radically globalized.  \n\nThis series presumes that Benjamin was right
 \, and that the cinema is every bit as urgent as the moments of urgency in
 to which it is threaded. Watch and see. \n\n—Professor John Mowitt\, Cul
 tural Studies &amp\; Comparative Literature\, University of Minnesota \n\n
 \nCinema of Urgency is organized by Walker curators Sheryl Mousley and Dea
 n Otto with John Mowitt\, Rembert Hueser\, and Verena Mund of the Universi
 ty of Minnesota.   \n\nCopresented by the Imagine Fund Arts &amp\; Humanit
 ies Chair 2011–2013\, Moving Image Studies\, as well as the departments 
 of Cultural Studies &amp\; Comparative Literature\, German\, Scandinavian 
 &amp\; Dutch\, Communication Studies and English at the University of Minn
 esota.
LOCATION:Walker Cinema\n
SUMMARY:Cinema of Urgency
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
URL:http://www.walkerart.org/calendar/2012/cinema-urgency
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