Sam Feder presents "Heightened Scrutiny" Screening & Q&A
2025-04-23 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Heightened Scrutiny is a documentary film about the first out trans attorney arguing in front of the US Supreme Court (United States v. Skrmetti) and the role of mainstream media in fueling anti-trans legislation. The film’s director, Sam Feder, will be presenting this film at the Sanctuary followed by a Q&A. Ahead of the film, Feder will be offering a Be The Media! workshop from 5-6pm.

This event is a collaboration with the RPI’s iEAR Presents series, supported by the Department of Arts and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Heightened Scrutiny follows Chase Strangio, ACLU attorney and the first out trans person to argue before the Supreme Court, as he fights a high-stakes legal battle to overturn Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth (United States v. Skrmetti).

The film exposes the dangerous role of mainstream media in fueling anti-trans legislation, uncovering how biased coverage drives hate, endangers lives, and threatens democracy itself. With insights from journalists like Jelani Cobb, Lydia Polgreen, and Gina Chua, and activists like Laverne Cox, the story dismantles anti-trans disinformation and highlights its devastating real-world impact.

As SCOTUS prepares to rule on the case, HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY reveals the fight for bodily autonomy as a fight for the soul of democracy, offering a powerful call to action against bigotry and injustice. website

Flaherty Film Seminar
2025-06-29 11:00 - 16:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
An immersive program of screenings and conversations, the Flaherty Film Seminar is an internationally recognized forum for collective inquiry into non-fiction cinema, encouraging the exchange of cinematic ideas across generations and cultures, and promoting the expansion of the limits of cinema itself.

Register

In collaboration with Picture Lock One and the Tang Museum, this gathering of the internationally recognized seminar provides access to two curated non-fiction film programs followed by group discussion, encouraging the exchange of cinematic ideas across generations and cultures, and promoting the expansion of the limits of cinema itself. Lunch will be provided.

Schedule:11am-1pm: Flaherty screening program #4 + discussion12pm: food is provided1pm-2pm: break between sessions and get a Sanctuary campus tour if interested2pm-4pm: Flaherty screening program #5 + discussion

Join other Flaherty Film Seminar pods:June 27: The Tang Museum in Saratoga SpringsJune 28: Picture Lock One at 50 4th Street, Troy

Learn more about the Flaherty Film Seminar gatherings

“Turn the Light Around” 16mm Film Screening
2025-09-20 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for screenings of 16mm plant processed performance films, presented by Katherine Bauer and Joyce Lainé, members of the film collective Le Ratoire and Atelier MTK. The images in each film emerge before our eyes through the process of a developer composed of plants, ashes, and water. The sun gives to the plants, the plants give to the silver, the silver turns the light around, to give to our eyes. The screening will be followed by a Q&A. This event is co-sponsored by iEar Presents!

In this screening, plants are collaborators in both the subject and the material revelation of the visual story. Plant is the Place. The action of creating these films are themselves performative relationships with the surroundings, the projection expanding this vision for yet more eyes to see.

Plant Processing is a collective action— particularly with the methods of Le Ratoire’s performative folk film-making style, but also with the methodologies of collective making and restraints employed by La Ratoire’s “Asphalt Splendor.” For this film, the group will set out to make a portrait of “the river that flows both ways,” or Mahicannittuk in Machican (aka The Hudson River), canoeing and camping from Troy to worlds end, plant processing all along the way with the different plants growing on the shores.

“Bat Nut,” is a poetic video document of friends gathering together to clear the locally loved Beaver Pond in Chatham, NY of the thorny Bat Nut. Other videos will show an exploration of a closed tungsten mine from WWII in Portugal, processed with the industrially farmed Eucalyptus, and a turn around a temple outside of Guadalajara, Mexico which was processed with beer and sage from their surroundings, and a film stained red from being processed with a certain seaweed, and more!

Alternative Film Processing Workshop with Le Ratoire, 2-6pm

Le Ratoire is a filmmaking collective; since 2019, composed of Léa Lanoë, Pierre Borel (Labo L’argent, Marseille, France), Katherine Bauer, Joyce Lainé, and Loïc Verdillon (Atelier MTK, Grenoble, France). They have elaborated a methodology for collective filmmaking wherein all aspects and stages of the film are made in a single go. Beginning with a constraint (a place, a theme, a technical method), embrace the unplanned that emerges within the process; the unexpected “failures” that inevitably occur are as important as the constraints that first inspired the process. The name “Le Ratoire” refers to the verb in French, rater, that means “to miss, fail, or flunk” and laboratoire, indicating the analog hand-made laboratory practices employed. Also the idea of a ratery or site for the “lab rat”; in this case we are the rats running tests on ourselves.

ATELIER MTK, founded in 1992 is the first collective film lab of France. It is an artist-run cinematographic laboratory equipped to work in all aspects of analogue films. The lab should be considered like a playground. Tools and techniques of the film medium are re-appropriated from the industrial film laboratories in order to encourage filmmakers to consider every element as a phase with creative potential. https://www.filmlabs.org/labs/mtk/.

The Forever War; The War on Terror
2025-10-24 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for a screening of “Tarik Shah: Don’t Play Like Them,” a documentary film about locally-based jazz musician Tarik Shah who was incarcerated for almost 15 years on terrorist accusations, and panel discussion around the lasting impact of the war on terror. The event will conclude with a musical performance with Tarik Shah on bass accompanied by guitarist by Luke Franco. This is a collaboration with the Coalition for Civil Freedoms.

5pm: Be The Media! workshop with Barry Rubinow

Locally-based jazz musician Tarik Shah is one of the many victims of “the war on terror.” “Tarik Shah: Don’t Play Like Them,” a documentary film by Barry Rubinow, takes the viewer through Tarik’s release and subsequent jobs, gigs, past career highlights, his imprisonment, life events, and difficulties in getting back into the ever-changing jazz scene in New York City. This short film (37 minutes) will be followed by a panel discussion which will include Tarik Shah, Barry Rubinow, and Kathy Manley and Jeanne Finley on behalf of Coalition for Freedoms. This event looks at the lasting impact on the lives of political prisoners.

Panelists:

Tarik Shah, Locally-based jazz musician who was incarcerated for almost 15 years on terrorist accusations, and the subject of “Tarik Shah: Don’t Play Like Them.” Shah’s musical journey began in earnest at the age of 16, when he became the sole bass student of internationally acclaimed bassist Slam Stewart. By age 21, Shah was touring the world with legendary vocalist Betty Carter. From there, he has performed and recorded with a stunning array of Jazz legends, including Ahmad Jamal, Randy Weston, Abbey Lincoln, Pharoah Sanders, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Dr. Lonnie Smith and so many more.

Kathy Manley is the Legal Director of the Coalition for Civil Freedoms and the Vice-President of the Capital Region Council of the New York Civil Liberties Union. She is also a founding member of Project SALAM. Her main emphasis is criminal defense and constitutional rights. She concentrates on appeals, has written many winning briefs before a variety of courts, and has received several awards for her work.

Barry Rubinow is the director of “Tarik Shah: Don’t Play Like Them.” Rubinow’s career as a producer, director, editor, and indie filmmaker includes an Emmy Award for editing the CBS science show, Beakman’s World, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short Subject for the first documentary he edited, Red Grooms: Sunflower in a Hothouse. He was also a founding member of The Documentary Channel. His latest film, “Tarik Shah: Don’t Play Like Them,” won Best Documentary at the 2025 Albany Film Festival.

Moderator: Jeanne Finley is a photographer, writer, and editor. She was an original member of the Muslim Solidarity Committee, the grassroots group formed in 2006 to advocate for two Albany Muslims, Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, who were unjustly convicted in an FBI phony “terrorism” plot. She also edited Yassin Aref’s memoir, Son of Mountains, and a Palestinian prisoner’s book of poetry and art, Light from Deep Under, by Shukri Abu Baker. With colleagues, she now advocates for prisoners through Coalition for Civil Freedom.

The Coalition for Civil Freedoms (CCF) is a survivor-led nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the abuses of the U.S. domestic “War on Terror.” Founded in 2010, CCF is a coalition of civil liberties and human rights organizations that challenges preemptive prosecution and the post-9/11 targeting, surveillance, and criminalization of Muslim communities. CCF’s core areas of work include education and outreach, prisoner and family support.

Memory, Diaspora, & Decoloniality: Films by Suneil Sanzgiri
2025-10-29 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for a film screening of Golden Jubilee, a film in a series of works about memory, diaspora, and decoloniality, with filmmaker Suneil Sanzgiri.

This event is a iEAR Presents! and EMPAC Collaboration

4:30pm: Decolonial Practices in Film Workshop: A Cross-Generational Dialogue with Suneil Sanzgiri and Youth FX

What is liberation when so much has already been taken? Who has come for more? “Golden Jubilee”, the third film in a series of works about memory, diaspora and decoloniality, takes as its starting point scenes of the filmmaker’s father navigating a virtual rendering of their ancestral home in Goa, India, created using the same technologies of surveillance that mining companies use to map locations for iron ore in the region. A tool for extraction and exploitation becomes a method for preservation.

EMPAC series: An Impossible Address, Suneil Sanzgiri

Suneil Sanzgiri is an artist, researcher, and filmmaker. Spanning experimental video and film,animations, essays, and installations, his work contends with questions of identity, heritage,culture, and diaspora in relation to structural violence and anticolonial struggles across theGlobal South. Sanzgiri’s films offer sonic and visual journeys through family history, localmythology, and colonial legacies of extraction in Goa, India—where his family originates—deftlyutilizing and vividly blending together 3D renderings, drone videography, photogrammetry andlidar scanning, 16 mm film and animation, archival footage, and desktop documentary practices.

"Run, Hide, Fight" a Youth Storytelling Workshop
2026-03-21 14:00 - 17:00
Join us for a free storytelling workshop at the Sanctuary, using a short PBS documentary Run, Hide, Fight: Growing up Under the Gun to prompt conversations around storytelling and humanity in a workshop led by storyteller and multi-disciplinary artist, D. Colin. Young people of all ages are welcome with their families, the story telling workshop is designed for middle to high school aged youth but there will be age appropriate activities for younger children.This event is made possible through the partnership with WMHT Public Media.

Following the documentary, Run, Hide, Fight: Growing up under the gun, join D. Colin for a storytelling workshop exploring the power of personal stories in building connection, sharing our humanity, and leaving an impact. Using creativity, our lived experiences and the film, we’ll share intentional time discussing what safety means and how we can use our voices to inspire change. HEAR D. COLIN’S INTERVIEW ABOUT THE WORKSHOP.

Gun violence is the leading cause of death for American children and teens. Run, Hide, Fight: Growing Up Under the Gun is a new 30-minute documentary about how gun violence affects young Americans, from PBS News Student Reporting Labs in collaboration with 14 student journalists from five U.S. cities: Philadelphia, Oakland, Washington D.C., Nashville, and East Lansing, Michigan. The documentary profiles how the same young people that have survived these traumatic events are leading the fight for a safer future.

HEAR MARA DROGAN OF WMHT PUBLIC MEDIA SPEAK ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP.

D. Colin is a multidisciplinary artist of Haitian descent whose creative practice spans poetry, visual art, and theater. Originally from Connecticut, she has called New York’s Capital Region home since 2007. With a background in English and Africana Studies, she is a teaching artist and curator who creates and facilitates spaces for creativity, storytelling, and healing.

D. Colin has received numerous accolades, including the 2022 Excellence in Arts & Letters Award from UAlbany and the title of Resourceful Woman in the Arts in 2019. Deeply inspired by Nina Simone’s belief that “an artist’s duty is to reflect the times,” she often says, “if the art didn’t move you, then I didn’t do my job.”

This event is made possible through a partnership with WMHT and PBS.

“1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture” Film Screening
2026-06-25 19:00 - 21:30
Join us for a film screening of “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture” in collaboration with Collar City Pride and New Breath Spirituality Center. This feature documentary film follows the story of tireless researchers who trace the origins of the anti-gay movement among Christians to a grave mistranslation of the Bible in 1946. This screening will be followed by group discussion.This film is co-sponsorship with Collar City Pride & New Breath Spirituality Center

Join us during Pride month for a special documentary viewing of 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture, This film shows how one group’s translation of the Bible supported decades of homophobia in many Christian traditions. Stay after the viewing for a short group discussion about the documentary

About this Film

1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture is a feature documentary that follows the story of tireless researchers who trace the origins of the anti-gay movement among Christians to a grave mistranslation of the Bible in 1946. It chronicles the discovery of never-before-seen archives at Yale University which unveil astonishing new revelations, and casts significant doubt on any biblical basis for LGBTQIA+ prejudice. Featuring commentary from prominent scholars as well as opposing pastors, including the personal stories of the film’s creators, 1946 is at once challenging, enlightening, and inspiring. While other documentaries have been successful in their attempt to treat the symptom of homophobia in the church, 1946 is working to diagnose and treat the disease – Biblical Literalism.

About the Co-sponsors

Collar City Pride is Rensselaer County’s only LGBTQIA2S+ based and operating community center hub, providing services and events to uplift our queer community.

New Breath Spirituality Center is a place where we can learn and talk about connecting with God, spirituality, and prayer/spiritual practices– as well as try some out for ourselves.

“Black Atlas” Screening with Edward George & Fred Moten
2026-09-02 19:00 - 21:00
as part of EMPAC’s TOPOS Festival

Join Black Audio Film Collective founding member Edward George for a screening of Black Atlas which explores the “Image of the Black” archive—a collection of over 30,000 images documenting representations of people of African descent from antiquity through the civil rights era. After the screening, George will be joined in conversation with Fred Moten, a Black Culture Studies professor at NYU Tisch. This event is a collaboration with EMPAC & iEar Presents!

REGISTER HERE

*This event is included in the TOPOS Festival Pass

Commissioned by The Warburg Institute in London, filmmaker, writer, broadcaster, and musician Edward George’s Black Atlas explores the “Image of the Black” archive—a collection of over 30,000 images documenting representations of people of African descent from antiquity through the civil rights era. The American premiere of Black Atlas is presented in partnership with The Sanctuary for Independent Media (Troy, NY) and RPI Arts Department’s iEAR Presents! Drawing from the archive, George creates a new film that reanimates historical imagery through narration, sound, and montage. Accompanied by an evocative score by Seymour Wright and Crystabel Efemena Riley, Black Atlas unfolds as a meditation on time, place, and presence— considering art as a medium of transcendence, a technology of power, and an affirmation of a humanist, anti-racist project.

5pm: Be The Media! workshop with Edward George

Guest Bios:

Edward George- writer, broadcaster, and founder of Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1998), the multimedia duo Flow Motion (1996-present), and the electronic music group Hallucinator (1998-present). George wrote and presented the ground-breaking science fiction documentary Last Angel of History (1996), and he hosts Sound of Music (Threads Radio), Kuduro – Electronic Music of Angola (Counterflows). George’s series The Strangeness of Dub (Morley Radio) dives into reggae, dub, versions and versioning, drawing on critical theory, social history, and a deep, wide cross-genre musical selection.

Fred Moten is a professor in the Departments of Performance Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University, where he teaches courses in black studies, poetics, and critical theory. He works with lots of social and aesthetic study groups including Stefano Harney & Fred Moten, the Black Arts Movement School Modality, Le Mardi Gras Listening Collective, the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy, Moved by the Motion, the Institute of Physical Sociality and the Harris/Moten Quartet.

"WTO/99" Film Screening on the Battle of Seattle
2026-10-16 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for a screening of the documentary film about the Battle of Seattle, where 50,000 activists hit the streets of Seattle, WA to block a major World Trade Organization conference, an event seen by many as setting the tone for mass mobilization movements at the start of the century. WTO/99 will be screened and followed by a Q&A with the film’s editor and producer Alex Megaro.

Register Here– Coming Soon

WTO/99 is an immersive archival documentary that depicts the four-day clash between the then-emerging World Trade Organization (WTO) and the 40,000+ people who took to the streets of Seattle in 1999 to protest the WTO Conference and the WTO’s impact on human rights, labor, and the future effects of continued globalization. https://www.wto99doc.com/

Water Justice and Media Lab End of Season Celebration
2026-11-14 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Celebration featuring youth-produced short film and presentations about the 2026 Water Justice and Media Lab Season. …more info coming soon
