Who: John Greyson, FCCS Visiting Scholar
What: Documentary film screening: “Fig Trees”
When: Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m.
Where: University Theatre (ADM 026), UBC’s Okanagan campus, Kelowna
Admission: Free and open to the public
What: Public talk: “Narcissus in Cairo”
When: Thursday, March 24 at 7 p.m.
Where: Black Box Theatre, 1375 Water Street, Kelowna
Admission: Free and open to the public
He’s talented, outspoken, openly gay, and has spent months in a brutal Egyptian prison, held without charges.
Human-rights activist John Greyson is also a Toronto film/video artist and professor at York University, who will spend a week at UBC’s Okanagan campus working with students and faculty. Also during his March 21-25 visit, Greyson presents a film screening and a public lecture.
Greyson was invited to be one of 2016’s Visiting Scholars by UBC’s Michael V. Smith, associate professor of Creative Writing, and Daniel Keyes, associate professor of Cultural Studies, both in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCCS).
“John Greyson isn’t just one of the most influential independent filmmakers in Canada, nor just a world-class artist-activist, he was also a cause célèbre for his illegal incarceration in Egypt,” says Smith. “Artists around the world denounced his seizure. His Okanagan visit will be inspiring, as he brings together filmmaking, politics and global responsibility.”
Greyson’s film shorts, features and installations include: Fig Trees, Proteus the Law of Enclosures, Lilies, Un©ut, Zero Patience, The Making of Monsters and Urinal.
During his visit to UBC Okanagan, Greyson will screen Fig Trees, a feature-length documentary opera about the struggles of AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Cape Town, as they fight for access to drug treatment. The free screening is Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m. in the University Theatre (ADM 026) at UBC’s Okanagan campus.
Greyson also presents a free public lecture, titled “Narcissus in Cairo,” on Thursday, March 24 at the Black Box Theatre, 1375 Water St., downtown Kelowna, 7 p.m. Detailing his self-named “Egyptian spa vacation,” the talk is a queer reading of his internationally-denounced detainment in an Egyptian prison sell with 38 other prisoners, without charges, for seven weeks in 2013.
An Associate Professor in Film Production at York University, and a PhD candidate in Sexual Diversity/Drama at U of T, Greyson was awarded the Toronto Arts Award for Film/Video (2000), the Bell Canada Video Art Award (2007), and the Alanis Obamsawin Cinema Politica Award (2011).
Beyond traditional feature and documentary filmmaking, Greyson has created a number of activist new-media projects, including a 40-webisode murder mystery he created for the Toronto Transit Commission to be broadcast on their subway platforms (2014).
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Contact: Dan Keyes, daniel.keyes@ubc.ca, 250-807-9320