Last week, after a hard deliberation and with mixed feelings, I announced my leave from the role of Director of Cinematheque. During my tenure, I heard from many of you expressing your excitement and appreciation for my curation and contributions. Similarly, after last week’s news, a great number of you sent me heartwarming and supportive messages and comments. I am immensely grateful to you all; these notes kept me above water during a very emotional time.
As I expressed in my announcement, I’m honored to have directed and programmed this venerable institution, and I’m grateful to have had the chance to share my vision and passion with you. The task of the curator is not merely to share her taste or reflect those of her audience. A good program introduces new perspectives and inspires new voices. It is provocative as much as informative, challenging as much as entertaining. And as such, it not only engages but builds and nurtures its audience. The institution grows with the program, and the curator grows with her audience. As far as the scope of my power in this role went, I strived to do exactly that. I think of curation as painting a picture with films, where the color fills the canvas once those films reach the audience. I believe we painted many beautiful pictures together.
The curator is also like a scaffolder: her work is to build the frame and support for the art she selects and invites her audience to see. This idea was on my mind when I chose Hirokazu Kore Eda’s After Life as my going away movie, which will screen on Friday, April 10th—my last day in the role. While the film is a meditation on memory, happiness, and the ways our lives touch one another, it also reflects on the quiet power of cinema to return us to ourselves in moments that might otherwise slip away.
In the story, counselors in the afterlife help the recently deceased choose a single cherished memory to carry into eternity by recreating and filming it. Their work is depicted without glamour, closer to social service than to anything mystical. That portrayal feels true to me as a programmer. Operating between the light of the projector and the dark of the auditorium, cinema workers are counselors of a kind—the functionaries of the dream world on screen. We’re there to help you take with you a moment that might stay with you for the rest of your lives.
As I leave this position, the film feels like an apt companion and a fitting goodbye—something that can become a memory for both you and for me. It mirrors my own impulse to remember, to create a final memory of the Cinematheque and this last night. I look forward to introducing this poetic film, and I hope you can join us.
If you’d like to stay in touch, you can find me on Letterboxd as Bilgesu Sisman and on Instagram as @lamby_murphy. I also have a Substack, Darkness Spills, where I started sharing my creative writing and thematically curated lists. My next short story will be posted there soon. The book club idea I proposed you in my last column might also live there. In order to help with the transition, I will also keep programming until the position of the Director is filled, as long as my availability allows.
It’s been a true pleasure growing the Cinematheque with you. Thank you again for your support, curiosity, and community.
Bilgesu Sisman, Director of Cinematheque