Our Eyes, Spinning Like Propellers
"Light is the first visible animal of the invisible." -José Lezama Lima
A weekly international film series curated by Steve Elkins from 2013 - 2019 at Hibbleton Gallery, the Leo Fender Museum, and the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Each month featured an eclectic mix of films ranging from classics to underground cinema connected by a theme, director, or region, often from countries typically ignored by film historians such as Iran, Mongolia, Mali, Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Tunisia and El Salvador. Elkins introduced and moderated community discussion of each film. Whenever possible, directors of the films were present for Q&A. This gallery provides a retrospective of the films, people, publications, and art exhibitions inspired by the series which was named "Best Place To Watch Movies The Rest Of The World Has Forgotten" by OC Weekly in 2013.
FOR MORE INFO ON EACH FILM (AND STORIES FROM THE SERIES), CLICK ON A PHOTO, THEN THE CAPTION HEADER.
Read MoreA weekly international film series curated by Steve Elkins from 2013 - 2019 at Hibbleton Gallery, the Leo Fender Museum, and the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Each month featured an eclectic mix of films ranging from classics to underground cinema connected by a theme, director, or region, often from countries typically ignored by film historians such as Iran, Mongolia, Mali, Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Tunisia and El Salvador. Elkins introduced and moderated community discussion of each film. Whenever possible, directors of the films were present for Q&A. This gallery provides a retrospective of the films, people, publications, and art exhibitions inspired by the series which was named "Best Place To Watch Movies The Rest Of The World Has Forgotten" by OC Weekly in 2013.
FOR MORE INFO ON EACH FILM (AND STORIES FROM THE SERIES), CLICK ON A PHOTO, THEN THE CAPTION HEADER.
![Mohandas Gandhi overthrew the world's largest empire through radical commitment to non-violence. In Gandhi's own words: "the Sermon on the Mount...went straight to my heart. I compared it with the Gita. The verses, 'But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man take away thy coat let him have thy cloke too,’ delighted me beyond measure and put me in mind of Shamal Bhatt’s ‘For a bowl of water, give a goodly meal’ etc. My young mind tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, The Light of Asia and the Sermon on the Mount...
It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself. For we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that being but with him the whole world...
I object to violence because, when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent...Suffering in one’s own person is...the essence of non-violence and is the chosen substitute for violence to others...[Unless] Europe is to commit suicide, some nation will have to dare to disarm herself and take large risks. The level of non-violence in that nation...will naturally have risen so high as to command universal respect. They say “means are after all [just] means.” I would say “means are after all everything"...A society which anticipates and provides for meeting violence with violence will either lead a precarious life or create big cities and magazines for defense purposes. It is not unreasonable to presume from the state of Europe that its cities, its monster factories and huge armaments are so intimately interrelated that the one cannot exist without the other...
...in the case of non-violence, everybody seems to start with the assumption that the non-violent method must be set down as a failure unless he himself at least lives to enjoy the success thereof. This is both illogical and invidious. In Satyagraha [Soul-Force] more than in armed warfare, it may be said that we find life by losing it."](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-fsQdxFh/0/M/i-fsQdxFh-M.jpg)