Life and Land – 2024

Wednesday, April 10, 1:00 PM

Illegibility as Resistance
Director: Mohammad Younus Nomani, Documentary, USA, 10 min
Symbols within forms or matter are used to interpret and understand everything around us, but what happens if modern civilization takes them away?

White Grass
Director: Justin Kim WooSŏk, Documentary, Mongolia, 16 min
White Grass follows Munkhjargal, a 10 year old female jockey, and her family of nomadic herders as they train to compete in Mongolia’s most important festival–Naadam–following a devastating cycle of extreme winters and dry summers that decimated their flock and threatens their way of life.

Ever Since, I Have Been Flying
Director: Aylin Gökmen, Documentary, Turkey, 19 min
Vakıf, a 60-year-old Kurdish man who grew up in a nomadic tribe in the mountains of southeast Turkey, recalls moments from his youth that have shaped his life. He takes us back to his idyllic childhood with his mother, his first love found in a cotton field and lost in the woods, and the mistreatment suffered at the hands of the police, in a cold and dark place.

Muckville
Director: Jeff Mertz, Documentary, USA, 19 min
Muckville examines the ongoing mental health and suicide epidemic on American farms through the eyes of a 4th-generation onion farmer in New York’s Black Dirt region.

A Mustafa
Director: Zeynep Gülru Kececiler, Documentary, Turkey, 40 min
6th February 2023: A major disaster struck Turkey. This catastrophe inflicted deep wounds on the country. While we cannot bring back the lives that were lost, how will we, the ones who remain, continue with our lives?