Film series: Doc Spots

Our ongoing Doc Spots series presents a dynamic range of non-fiction films around the world, foregrounding both powerful narratives and compelling storytelling techniques. Many events are cosponsored by Cornell departments and programs and will feature introductions and post-screening discussions with faculty.

This semester, we are excited to be welcoming filmmaker Robert Greene in collaboration with the Rural Humanities Initiative at Cornell. Greene will discuss his acclaimed 2018 Bisbee ’17, which revisits the trauma of the 1917 Bisbee Deportation in which nearly two-thousand immigrant miners, on strike for better wages and safer working conditions, were violently rounded up by their armed neighbors, herded onto cattle cars, shipped to the middle of the New Mexican desert, and left there to die.

Other highlights include Mati Diop’s Dahomey, a hybrid docufiction film examining the return of royal artifacts from France to the Kingdom of Benin, and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, which captures the moment when African politics and American jazz collided in the 1960s to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup.

Featuring:

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

(2024, dir. Johan Grimonprez)
Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 7pm    
Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 5pm

Bisbee '17 with filmmaker Robert Greene

(2018, dir. Robert Greene)
Monday, February 10, 2025 at 7pm

Dahomey 

(2024, Mati Diop)
Thursday, February 13, 2025 at 7pm    
Thursday, February 27, 2025 at 9:15pm

Unseen Skies [To be confirmed]

(2021, Yaara Bou Melhem)
Thursday, February 27, 2025 at 7pm 

Eno 

(2024, dir. Gary Hustwit)
Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 8pm

Additional films will be announced throughout the semester!