Bodies of Time: Documentary Media MFA Thesis Showcase (Night Two)

NIGHT TWO: Bodies of Time

RSVP

Bodies of Time is the 2026 Northwestern Documentary Media MFA Thesis showcase. These films consider ways in which bodies across geographies inhabit a place and how places can settle or unsettle bodies across human and nonhuman timescales. In these works, we search for wild orchids in Yunnan, China; observe the state of migratory limbo of a Tibetan mother and son in Kathmandu, Nepal; wayfind historical encounters across anachronistic timescales in a Chicago canal; and explore the tension between change and stasis as experienced through meditations on place in Chillicothe, Illinois.

Following the screening, Block Cinema Curator Michael Metzger will join the filmmakers for a conversation and Q&A with the audience.

 Please note there will be a reception at 6 PM open to all attendees. 

Films:

Canal Land (Alan Medina, 2026, 15:30 mins, 16mm-to-digital)

Anachronistic encounters along industrial banks convey the use and abuse of a Chicago canal. Settlers are frozen in time, the waters remember, and an amphibian presence persists.

Our Time Here (Victor Ramos, 2026, 20 mins, Digital)

A portrait of a Midwestern town, observed through the routines of its aging population.

Orchidaceae (Maya Castronovo, 2026, 18 mins, Digital)

a search for an endangered orchid species in Yunnan, China, anchors an investigation into

networks of cultivation, and the porous boundary between the authentic and the staged.

Between Two Skies (________, 2026, 35 mins, Digital)

A Tibetan mother and her eleven-year-old son living in Kathmandu, Nepal, await a family reunion in Canada.

Total runtime: approx. 88 min

Co-presented by Northwestern’s School of Communication, The Department of Radio-TV-Film, Jane Steiner Hoffman and Michael Hoffman, and The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art.