Ataya: HUMA Interdisciplinary Seminar Series
Speaker: Dylan Valley, Centre for Film & Media Studies, UCT
Bio: Dylan Valley is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and educator who views film as a liberatory tool. He is currently a Lecturer at the Centre for Film and Media Studies (CFMS) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and a PhD student in media studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. In 2013, he received a Pulitzer Fellowship from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, where he obtained his Masters in Specialized Journalism. At USC he completed his thesis documentary on the groundbreaking web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. In January 2020, his virtual reality documentary Azibuye - The Occupation premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In the same year, he also served on the selection committee for the Frontlight section of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).
Topic: Can Virtual Reality be used for social justice? What are the possibilities and pitfalls of this technology, often hailed as an “empathy machine?” As a result of his participation in Electric South's New Dimensions Lab, documentary filmmaker and academic Dylan Valley made a short virtual reality/ 360 documentary called Azibuye: The Occupation which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2020. Valley has since continued to work in the medium and has made a second VR film called No Place But Here (co-directed by Annie Nisenson) about the Cissie Gool House occupation in Woodstock. In this talk, he will discuss the advantages and challenges of documentary storytelling through immersive technologies.
How Ataya works: One presenter and their work – in exchange with the audience. Each Ataya session engages with selected work by the presenter (a text, artwork, performance, even food). The presenter introduces their work and grounds the subsequent discussion with the participants. For best engagement, we recommend participants to view the work (made available in advance on our website) before the session. More on the Ataya Series
Convenor: Dominique Somda
Lunch will be served at 12:30 SAST (GMT+2).
Register to attend: send us an email at huma@uct.ac.za
Attending online? Register to join via Zoom: