Join us for an evening of film, conversation, and community as we continue Jameel’s Summer Cinema, in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club, with a screening of Afterlives, a documentary that asks how we look at images of violence, and whether there is another way to care.

AFTERLIVES
Kevin B. Lee, 2025, 88 min

Afterlives is a desktop documentary that critically engages with the historical and digital traces of extremist propaganda, questioning how images of violence circulate, mutate, and persist. The film moves between virtual investigations and real-world encounters with artists, activists, and researchers who seek to resist the toxic effects of such media. At its core is the figure of Medusa—a victim of violence whose gaze turned viewers to stone— invoked as a symbol of both the dangers and transformative potential of looking. From museum archives to AI-generated reconstructions, the film explores how power structures, spanning from the colonial past to the digital age, shape the way we see and remember violence.

Can we ever truly look without being complicit?
And is there another way to care?

“Afterlives is a dedicated, reflective documentary, the bell of its urgency ringing far into the past and into the futures of images.” — Savina Petkova, The Film Stage

Trailer: 

Following the screening, Hind Mezaina will be in conversation with Kevin Jones. Audiences are invited to engage in collective viewing, stay for the conversation, and enjoy refreshments available throughout the evening.

Screenings are free to attend. Registration is required.
Curated by Hind Mezaina, founder of The Culturist Film Club.

Kevin Jones is a brand strategist, arts writer, and educator who is interested in the self- representational strategies of art practitioners in the MENASA region. New York-born and Paris-bred, Kevin has lived in the Middle East since 2006, serving as UAE Desk Editor for the magazine ArtAsiaPacific, while contributing criticism both internationally and regionally. Kevin holds a BA with a double major English Literature/Journalism from Northwestern University. His MA is in Linguistics/Semiotics from La Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III). He is currently Artistic Director at Alserkal.

Hind Mezaina is an artist, film curator and writer from Dubai. Her interests lie in cinema, cities, visual culture, collective memory and archives. As an artist she works primarily in analogue photography and lately with moving image. She has been exhibited locally and internationally, including Art Dubai, Abu Dhabi Art, Sharjah Biennial 13: Tamawuj, Jameel Arts Centre, Nadežda Petrović Art Gallery, London Short Film Festival, Alternative Film/Video, and Safar Film Festival. As a film curator, she has programmed screenings for art institutions in the UAE including Louvre Abu Dhabi, NYUAD Art Gallery, Sharjah Art Foundation, The Africa Institute, and Jameel Arts Centre. She launched The Culturist Film Club in 2022 and hosts screenings at various venues in Dubai. The film club is an offshoot of her blog theculturist.com which she started in 2009 where you can find her writings.  www.hindmezaina.com 

 

SEE ALL EVENTS