Senior lecturer Bruker presents selection of documentaries, dance films, immersive media
On Thursday, the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive held a film screening and Q&A for a selection of Malia Bruker’s short films. Bruker, senior lecturer and director of B.F.A. in Cinematic Arts, creates documentaries, dance films, and immersive media.
The screening featured six of Bruker’s films: “Alluvium,” “V/IRL,” “Chase,” “Bailamos,” “Klasse,” and “Batay La.” The film topics ranged from a historical dance film about the Holocaust to a comedic documentary/fiction hybrid about Bruker’s relationship with her bank, which is Bruker’s personal favorite film she’s ever made.
“[“Chase” is] my funniest film, I love to hear audiences laughing and it also, I think, is where I was most creative in my film making,” Bruker said. “Like I said, it’s a funny film, but it also gets at a serious topic, which is the ways that the banking industry preys on people’s loneliness, poverty, things like that.”
Prior to the film screening, attendees were permitted to view two more of Bruker’s films through VR headsets, which provided for a more immersive experience. The films, “Threshold” and “Lychgate,” were 360-degree dance films.
“That’s kind of the most important thing about VR: it offers immersion into the world of film,” she said. “It kind of takes away some things that we’re used to in cinema, like close-up shots and editing and these kind of basic foundations of what film is, but what it offers in return is this really unique experience to be immersed in the world of the film.”
“Threshold” centers around the portrayal of four women grappling with the effects of trauma, while “Lychgate,” inspired by the ballet, “The Rite of Spring,” depicts a community of women performing a ritual to honor the unknown.
“VR is a medium that’s about space, so I could imagine very early on in the discussions using really tight spaces to represent the trauma and traumatic parts of their journey,” Bruker said, “and then really open spaces to represent the healing.”
For students wanting to pursue filmmaking, Bruker offered a piece of advice.
“Anyone who wants to get into filmmaking could come to our B.F.A. program at The Media School. We have excellent documentary filmmakers on faculty,” she said. “We have the Center for Documentary Research and Practice, the archives at IU are the best in the world.”
As well as taking classes and exploring the archive, Bruker also encouraged students to just try their hands at filmmaking.
“Filmmaking is a communal experience and so find people like you who are interested and just try it,” Bruker said.
To read more about Bruker and watch her short films, visit her website.