Kino Nights - Melikian Film Screenings
Named in the honor of the groundbreaking documentary work of The Kino-Eye Collective who revolutionized the representation of reality in cinema in the 1920s, Kino Nights is a new curated series of themed monthly screenings and conversations featuring present-day groundbreaking documentary and narrative cinema from Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, contextualized in timely conversations with scholars and artists. The screenings and conversations are free and open to all to attend.
In 2025, Kino Nights features bold films that address personal and collective trauma. Our line-up includes documentary and fiction films that touch on historical events that have left scars in the consciousness of the filmmakers, and their audiences. The works we present go beyond the descriptive to evoke the unthinkable and process the shock and horror without exploiting it, by using a distinct cinematic language. They create sensory experiences, spaces of shared imagination and affect that put audiences in fellowship with people, places and events of rupture, punctuated by violence, genocide, or catastrophe that reverberate long after they have unfolded.
Facilitated by Luiza Parvu and Toma Peiu from The Sidney Poitier New American Film School.
Next Screening - Feb 27, 2025
Songs of Slow Burning Earth
(2024, Olha Zhurba)
Olha Zhurba is a Ukrainian film director, editor and screenwriter. Her short fiction film Dad's Sneakers(2021) premiered at the Locarno FF and later won awards at many international festivals. Dad's Sneakers was a candidate for a nomination at the European Film Awards 2022. Outside (2022), her debut documentary, followed Roma, a 13-year-old street kid neglected by his family and the state, who became a poster boy for the Ukrainian Revolution in 2014. The film premiered at CPH:DOX and HOT DOCS and won the Willy Brandt award at the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin and later the Japan Prize Award of Honor. She was also the editor of the festival hits and award-winning documentary films This Rain Will Never Stop(2021) and Home Games(2018). Her second feature documentary film Songs of Slow Burning Earth premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2024, and went on to win the Best Feature Film Award at Riga International Film Festival; the Doc Future Award at Verzio IDFF Hungary; and the Best Film at Tertio Millennio Film Fest and the Special Jury Award at Rome Documentary FF.
The screening will be followed by a conversation featuring: director Olha Zhurba (remotely); Olena Tanchyk, PhD, Global Launch ASU; and Oli M Nevinska, Arizona Advocacy Delegation Leader, American Coalition for Ukraine; Anna Holian, Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies and Ana Hedberg Olenina, Associate Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures.
6:30pm - 9pm, College of Design North (CDN) Room 60, 810 South Forest Mall Tempe AZ 85281
Spring 2025 - Representing Trauma
Jan 30, 2025
1489 (2023)
Feb 27, 2025
Songs of Slow Burning Earth (2024)
April 3, 2025
Depth Two (2016)
April 4, 2025
The Load (2018)
Kino Nights is facilitated by Luiza Parvu and Toma Peiu
Luiza Parvu is an award-winning filmmaker and Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. A member of the European Film Academy, she has directed and edited films screened at festivals worldwide, including Sundance, BFI London, and Tribeca. Her work explores identity, memory, and transformation, often in collaboration with scientists and ethnographers. She is a programmer for the Mimesis Documentary Festival, and an editor of the feature documentary film Flying Lessons.
Toma Peiu is a filmmaker, visual artist, scholar and educator whose work explores human migration, forced relocation, placemaking, and environmental transformation. This work has appeared in festivals, galleries, journals and academic conferences worldwide. His research and collaborations document imaginaries from the fringes of society, and contrasts between abundance and scarcity, across North America, Europe and Central Asia. He is a co-founder of Root Films (Bucharest) and a founding member of the Entangled Films Collective (Munich).