FEATURE PRESENTATION

SATURDAY JUNE 15 • 9 PM • 94 MIN 

in English & Spanish with English subtitles

NEPTUNE SCOTIABANK STAGE THEATRE

$12 • $10 ADVANCE •FREE FOR STUDENTS

The Harvard Sensory Ethnography lab is a household name in the world of modern experimental documentary filmmaking. Works produced by the lab are distinguished by their immersive aesthetics and keen attention to cultural detail. This influence is profoundly felt in El Mar La Mar, the latest film from lab alumnus J.P. Sniadecki and co-director Joshua Bonnetta. El Mar La Mar captures the harrowing, mythic experience of life at the U.S.-Mexico border through pure cinema. Vast soundscapes and hand-processed 16mm images envelop and challenge viewers to not just see and hear the desert, but to reckon with it. Formally brilliant, effortlessly political, and never clinical: El Mar La Mar is a towering achievement that outstrips current conceptions of the documentary as an art form.

TRAILER

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Joshua Bonnetta (b.1979) is a Canadian artist and filmmaker who works primarily in analogue film across installation, performance, and theatrical exhibition. His film works have been exhibited at the MOMA, ICA London, BFI London Film Festival, Whitechapel Gallery, Berlin Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, AFI amongst various other festivals, museums and galleries throughout the world.

J.P. Sniadecki was born in 1979 in Marne, Michigan, USA. He studied Philosophy and Film and Chinese Language and Culture. He then attended Harvard University, where he earned an MA in East Asian Studies and a PhD in Social Anthropology with Media. J.P. Sniadecki is an artist, filmmaker, and anthropologist. He currently teaches filmmaking in the Documentary Media MFA programme at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA.