. Conversations at the Edge (CATE)

Fall 2020 Season Recap

For our Fall 2020 program, we brought together a group of artists and scholars including Alison O’Daniel (10/1), American Artist (10/8), Delinda Collier (10/15), Ursula Biemann (10/22), Auriea and Michaël Samyn (10/28).  These vibrant conversations and related screenings took place in the Gene Siskel Film Center’s virtual cinema. We’re grateful for our presenting partners, including […]

Fall 2020 Season Announcement

We’re pleased to announce the Fall 2020 season of Conversations at the Edge! Throughout the season, we’ll be hosting virtual artist talks and events alongside on-demand screenings. Join us for programs with Alison O’Daniel (Oct 1), American Artist (Oct 8), Delinda Collier (Oct 15), Ursula Biemann (Oct 22), and Auriea and Michaël Samyn (Oct 28).   […]

Feb 20 – Avant-Noir

Curator Greg de Cuir Jr. and artist Edgar Arceneaux in person Conceived by Belgrade-based curator Greg de Cuir Jr. as an “intervention into the status quo,” Avant-Noir brings together contemporary films and videos by international artists of African descent to showcase visual representations of Black cultures in their many complexities. Part of a much larger […]

On Louis Henderson

Tomorrow English filmmaker Louis Henderson will join us for his first Chicago appearance!   Video Data Bank‘s Lindsay Bosch blogs about Henderson’s references to the Internet and computing in his complex meditations on neo-colonalism and contemporary Ghana.   Most of video art I watch, I watch on my laptop.  I dream of creating a perfect screening space—uninterrupted hours, big […]

October 8- Louis Henderson: Melts Into Air

Thursday, October 8 | Paris-based filmmaker Louis Henderson in person! In his first Chicago appearance, award-winning director Louis Henderson presents a pair of films on the networked links between colonialism, computing, and capitalism in contemporary Ghana. In Lettres du Voyant (2013), a series of mysterious letters describe the practice of “Sakawa”—e-scams fortified by Western African religious rituals—and the possibilities […]

Nov 13 – Mati Diop: A Thousand Suns

Thursday, November 13th | Mati Diop in person! Known for dreamlike shorts that experiment with the boundaries between documentary and fiction, award-winning French filmmaker Mati Diop mined her own history for A Thousand Suns. The film explores the public and private legacies of the seminal Senegalese film Touki Bouki (1972), directed by her uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty. She focuses […]

Interview with Sven Augustijnen

Filmmaker Sven Augustijnen sat down with CATE Program Assistant George William Price to discuss his multifaceted artistic practice within the context of his film “Spectres”,  screened at CATE on April 4, 2014.   Augustijnen’s work concentrates on the tradition of portraiture and the porous boundaries between fiction and reality, using a hybrid of genres and techniques to […]

April 3 – Sven Augustijnen: Spectres

Thursday, April 3 | Sven Augustijnen in person! Confronting the authorized version of an atrocity committed during the early days of post-colonial African rule, Sven Augustijnen’s Spectres (2011) focuses a critical eye on the official account of the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first elected Prime Minister. The film begins a half-century later as the filmmaker sets off in […]

Khait Errouh (Threads)

Thursday, September 30, 2004, 8pm Hakim Belabbes & Dan Smith in person! “Beautifully shot in vibrant colors, the film shifts between characters, story lines, and perspectives with the prismatic grace of a kaleidoscope.” — Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader In this highly personal first feature by Moroccan-born, Chicago-based Hakim Belabbes, a dying man, accompanied by his […]