Ongoing
The Machine that Kills Bad People
A bi-monthly film club at ICA, London, organized together with Maria Palacios Cruz, Erika Balsom and Ben Rivers.
The Machine That Kills Bad People is, of course, the cinema—a medium that is so often and so visibly in service of a crushing status quo but which, in the right hands, is a fatal instrument of beauty, contestation, wonder, politics, poetry, new visions, testimonies, histories, dreams... It is also a film club devoted to showing work—“mainstream” and experimental, known and unknown, historical and contemporary—that takes up this task.
Screenings:
May 2025: Alanis Obomsawin’s Christmas at Moose Factory (1971) and Narimane Mari’s Bloody Beans (2015). Commissioned essay by Vanessa Onwuemezi.
March 2025: Anne Haugsgjerd’s Good Girl...Sit Down! (1991) and Laura Citarella and Verónica Llinás’s Dog Lady (2015). Commissioned essay by Siavash Minoukadeh.
January 2025: Linda Mary Montano's Mitchell’s Death (1977) and Liliana Cavani’s The Cannibals (1970). Commissioned poem by CAConrad.
November 2024: Basma Al-Sharif’s A Field Guide to the Ferns (2015) and Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz’s Messiah of Evil (1978). Commissioned essay by Morgan Fisher.
July 2024: Germaine Dulac’s La Souriante Mme Beudet (1923) and Marleen Gorris’s A Question of Silence (1982). Commissioned essay by Chloe Aridjis.
May 2024: Early shorts by Chantal Akerman (1967) and Kelly Reichardt’s River of Grass (1994). Commissioned essay by Huda Awan.
March 2024: Qiu Miaojin’s Ghost Carnival (1991) and Ida Lupino’s Outrage (1950). Commissioned essay by Laura Mulvey.
February 2024: Miranda Pennell’s You Made Me Love You (2006) and Carol Morley’s The Alcohol Years (1982). Commissioned essay by Sophie Robinson.
December 2023: Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here (2022) and Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel (1982). Commissioned essay by Beatrice Loayza.
October 2023: Martine Rousset’s Un vent léger dans le feuillage (1994) and Haneda Sumiko’s Ode to Mount Hayachine (1982). Commissioned essay by Ricardo Matos Cabo.
September 2023: Jeanne Liotta’s Observando el cielo (2007) and Annik Leroy’s In der Dämmerstunde – Berlin (1980). Commissioned essay by Amina Cain.
June 2023: Sylvia Schedelbauer’s Way Fare (2009) and Ruth Beckermann’s Paper Bridge (1987). Commissioned essay by Rebecca Jane Arthur.
April 2023: Barbara Hammer’s Audience (1982–83) and Lizzie Borden’s Regrouping (1976). Commissioned essay by Laura Guy.
March 2023: Assia Djebar’s La nouba des femmes de Mont-Chenoua (1977) and Sarah Maldoror’s Assia Djebar (1987). Commissioned essay by Corina Copp.
December 2022: Alice Guy’s Madame a des envies (1906) and Ildiko Enyedi’s My 20th Century (1989). Commissioned essay by Juliet Jacques.
October 2022: Malena Szalm’s ALTIPLANO (2018) and Nina Menkes’s The Bloody Child (1996). Commissioned essay by Alice Blackhurst.
July 2022: Rose Lowder’s Quiproquo (1992) and Manuela Serra’s The Movement of Things (1985). Commissioned essay by Teresa Castro.
May 2022: Dorothy Arzner’s Anybody’s Woman (1930) and Bette Gordon’s Anybody’s Woman (1981). Commissioned essay by Janique Vigier.
April 2022: Manon de Boer’s The Untroubled Mind (2016) and Shireen Seno’s Nervous Translation (2017). Commissioned essay by George Clark.
January 2022: Marguerite Duras’s Les Mains négatives (1978) and Marie-Claude Treilhou’s Simone Barbès ou la vertu (1980). Commissioned essay by Eileen Myles.
November 2021: Safi Faye’s Selbe et tant d’autres (1982) and Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Reassemblage (1982). Commissioned essay by Xiaolu Guo.
September 2021: Alice Rohrwacher’s Corpo Celeste (2011) and Nina Danino’s Stabat Mater (1990). Commissioned essay by Andréa Picard.
April 2020: Alanis Obomsawin’s Incident at Restigouche (1984) and Sandra Lahire’s Serpent River (1989). Commissioned essay by Tendai Mutambu.
January 2020: Friedl vom Gröller’s Photo Session (2010) and Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978). Commissioned essay by Courtney Duckworth.
November 2019: Angela Schanelec's Places in Cities (1998) and Alexandra Cuesta's Piensa in mí (2009). Commissioned essay by Daniella Shreir.
September 2019: Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman (1996) and Shai Heredia and Shumona Goel’s I am Micro (2012). Commissioned essay by Jemma Desai.
July 2019: Samira Makhmalbaf’s Blackboards (2000) and Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black (1962). Commissioned essay by Sara Saljoughi.
June 2019: Babette Mangolte’s The Sky on Location (1982) and Deborah Stratman’s O’er the Land (2009). Presented at Sheffield Doc/Fest. Commissioned essay by Erika Balsom.
May 2019: Peggy Ahwesh’s Martina’s Playhouse (1989) and Doris Wishman’s Nude on the Moon (1961). Commissioned essay by Ara Osterweil.
March 2019: Margarethe von Trotta’s The German Sisters (1981) and Joyce Wieland’s Rat Life and Diet in North America (1968). Commissioned essay by Lucy Reynolds.
January 2019: Where I am is Here (shorts programme). Commissioned essay by Genevieve Yue.
November 2018: Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent (1977) and Ute Aurand/Ulrike Pfeiffer’s Umweg (1983). Commissioned essay by Laura Staab.
September 2018: Claire Denis’s Nénette et Boni (1996) and Mati Diop’s Big in Vietnam (2012). Commissioned essay by Leo Goldsmith.
July 2018: Anocha Suchwichakornpong’s Mundane History (2009) and Mary Helena Clark’s The Dragon is the Frame (2014). Commissioned essay by May Adadol Ingawanij.
May 2018: Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970) and Laida Lertxundi’s Cry When It Happens (2010). Commissioned essay by Elena Gorfinkel.
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