It’s a truism these days — we’re all hyphenated.
We all live in multiple intersecting identities, some more accepted than others.
That’s the impetus for the theme of this year’s Wisconsin Union Directorate Film Committee’s fall festival, “Hyphenated American Film Festival.”
“It’s really focused on sharing different stories of people, different identities in the U.S.,” says Micki Nordeen, associate director of the festival. “We kind of decided it was a really important and pertinent idea right now, especially with certain people, different identities being kind of questioned on how American they are. The theme of the festival is really saying that every American has a different story, and we’re all hyphenated Americans.”
The festival includes 11 films including well-known titles like I Am Not Your Negro and Hasan Minaj’s Netflix special Homecoming King, as well as some lesser-known festival favorites like Dolores and Gook.
“We’ve gotten such a big request from Latinx Badgers to play Dolores,” Nordeen says. “It’s already gotten some excitement around it, which is really cool. It’s about Dolores Huerta, who is a huge activist from the farm labor movement and civil rights movement. The film Gook is going to be really hard hitting. A couple of my colleagues had seen it at Sundance, and we’re really, really excited about showing it. It’s about a lot of different intersecting identities. It’s specifically about Korean Americans, but also African Americans during the time of the LA riots. So those are just two examples, but those I’m really thrilled to be able to show them at the Marquee.”
The festival runs Thursday through Sunday at the Marquee Cinema at Union South, 1308 West Dayton Street. Admission is free and first-come, first-served.
“We let people in a half hour early so you can just come and line up,” Nordeen says. “No need to show a student I.D. or anything. It’s something for everyone.”
In conjunction with the film festival, the WUD Art Committee is also opening an exhibition at Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street, called Hyphenated, exploring similar themes.
“It features (photographs of) different students (who) identify as different types of hyphenated Americans, and they kind of shared their stories,” Nordeen says. “It’s like photographs of different students and quotes of their stories, so it’s going to be a really cool exhibition, and that’s kind of a cool collaboration we’re doing with them.”
The exhibition will hang until November 21.
The full lineup of films is below.
Thursday, November 9th
7:00PM – RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked The World (2017)
9:30PM – To Be Takei (2014)
Friday, November 10th
6:00PM – Signature Move (2017)
8:30PM – I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
Saturday, November 11th
3:00PM – Step (2017)
6:00PM – Beatriz At Dinner (2017)
8:30PM – Gook (2017)
11:00PM – Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King (2017)
Sunday, November 12th
1:00PM – Brooklyn (2015)
3:30PM – Dolores (2017)
6:00PM – Menashe (2017)
