Science Fiction Against the Margins Film Series
UCLA Film & Television Archive

part of
PST: Art & Science Collide

Tree House: 
"Gonawinda," "Field Resistance" and "The Tree House"

December 6, 2024 – 7:30 p.m.
Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum

Tickets are free, no RSVP required
Box office opens at 6:30 p.m.

Gonawinda (Colombia, 2011)

The Kogi, the Indigenous people and caretakers of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Colombia, call its highest peak Gonawindua, “the heart of the world.” “Gonawindua,” shot partly nature documentary-style, shows the beating heart of the jungle in long shots of birds, animals and a Kogi man traversing the mountain landscape. As we follow the traveler, what seems like a peaceful scene of nature in sync proves to be an even more profound image of the strength of Gonawindua and the Kogi over the damage caused by settlers in a not-so-distant future. — Nicole Ucedo

Field Resistance (U.S., 2019)

Research-based filmmaker Emily Drummer examines the natural world up close with her 16mm camera. The fraught relationship between the worlds of nature and advancing technologies is captured through eerie scenes of plants in microscopes, burning fields and a giant sinkhole. Plant spores fill the screen accompanied by human breaths, at times deep, at times fast. An after-hours scene of greenhouse plants bathed in purple light reveals the plant world to have a secret life of its own, unfazed by human behavior. Perhaps the plants’ self-determination offers hope of their resilience beyond our human interference.— Nicole Ucedo

The Tree House (Vietnam, 2019 – see trailer here)

In the year 2045, a man arrives on Mars, where he begins a new life away from home. He wants to make a film, but not about Mars, where his memories are empty. He contacts his father on Earth — the connection isn’t great, but he asks him about what life was like in Vietnam in the past. As his father describes to him how they built their home and shares other memories, we cruise around the Vietnamese mountains on a narrow windy road, on a densely foggy day. Filmmaker Minh Quy Truong documents the Ruc, Kor and Hmong peoples, asking them about their memories of their childhood homes in the mountains. The man finds that what is home to him on Mars and to the people he meets is not so different, or perhaps he only desires them to be similar. 

The Tree House premiered at Locarno and later was presented at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Truong brings his sensibilities to the screen in this gentle rumination about filmmaking, viewing and remembering. Shot on 16mm, the film’s touch is at once fuzzy and sharp: the images are clear but leave space to imagine the past as people talk about the childhoods we can no longer see. A common thread among some of the ethnic minorities he interviews is that they were made to leave home. One woman still returns to the cave she grew up in before soldiers forced her family down the mountain into town. She sleeps better there. Then again, don’t we tend to sleep better at home? — Nicole Ucedo

Background on Film Series

The Science Fiction Against the Margins film series of the UCLA Film & TV Archive is a constituent part of the Getty’s PST: Art & Science Collide, a broad range of art exhibitions and events held throughout Southern California in fall 2024. The films in the festival will be shown free of charge from October 4–December 14, 2024 at the Billy Wilder Theater of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. The series is presented in partnership with Cinema & Media Studies of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; the UCLA International Institute is a community partner of the festival.

Filmmakers showcased in Science Fiction Against the Margins occupy the “margins” of mainstream cinema in order to challenge and subvert the science fiction genre. Hollywood’s ubiquitous sci-fi story structure functions within the conventions of action-driven melodrama, resolving social issues in private, emotional and moral terms that reinforce the status quo.

While the focus is on the feature film as a global form of mass entertainment, the series also includes documentaries, shorts, video art and television episodes.

Cost : Free

Sponsor(s): UCLA International Institute, Film and Television Archive, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Los Angeles Film Forum