Program Details
Karthik Pandian, Surrendur, 2026. World Premiere
USA | 2026 | DCP | 86 min | English, Spanish, K’iche’, Tamil, Anishinaabemowin, and Dakota with English subtitles in select scenes
—
April 10, 2026
Curated by Jaclyn Quaresma
Collaborators Mike Forcia, Leila Awadallah and Karthik Pandian will be in conversation after the screening.
—
Presented by Images Festival, co-presented with Media City Film Festival, U of T Cinema Studies and Media Arts Network of Ontario
Photo documentation Camille Rojas
—
Surrendur features the creative voices of Mike Forcia (Bad River Anishinaabe), Ta Pe’juta Wičháȟpi Win (Hunkpati Dakota Oyate), Douglas R. Ewart, Mike Wiggins Jr. (Bad River Anishinaabe), Elias, Jiraiya, Luis Arnías, Video Communards, Lalitha Pandian, and the breath of Michael Silverman; movement by Sam Aros-Mitchell (Texas Band of Yaqui Indians), Leila Awadallah, Lela Pierce, Thomas Draskovic-Chetan Ohitika (Standing Rock Lakota), Eben Kowler, Paige K. Johnston, and Aaru Motherwell Pandian (ultrasound); music by Douglas R. Ewart (flutes, soprano sax, bells, gongs, George Floyd Bunt Staff), Lakota “Hokie” Clairmont (voice, drum), Amina Claudine Myers (Hammond B3 organ), Sam Aros-Mitchell (guitar), Karthik Pandian (pump organ, synth), S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, Ilayaraja, A.R. Rahman, The Cure, and Wiz Khalifa; and ASL interpretation by Regina Daniels and Bridget Sabatke
sur•ren•dur
a mandala for falling monuments, for falling into relation, for opening the மனசு* to the frequency of love in revolt
ren•dur
to describe this world, destroy it, open the portal to the next, and repeat
en•dur
expanding time
communing there
*Translated from Tamil as manasu, meaning both heart and mind
Surrendur transmits the stories of Mike Forcia (Bad River Anishinaabe)—the American Indian Movement activist who orchestrated the toppling of a monument to Christopher Columbus, Ta Pe’juta Wičháȟpi Win (Hunkpati Dakota Oyate)—whose political consciousness was awoken when she danced around the fallen statue with her daughter, and Leila Awadallah—a choreographer whose research in dance centres movement that activates relationships to land / place / peoples, rooted in the context of her own skin as a body and soul that holds indigenous Palestinian, Arab-American, SWANA, Sicilian and mixed Mediterranean worlds and ways.
Brought together by the toppling, these collaborators and their work are interwoven through Karthik’s unique style of editing nonsynchronous 16mm film. Informed by The George Floyd Uprising, the Anishinaabe Seven Fires Prophecy, and the Dakota 38+2 Memorial Ride, and oscillating between intimate conversation and kinetic montage, Surrendur traces the riverine network of migration and homecoming, chance encounter, and carefully cultivated collaboration that drew Pandian into deep relation with Forcia, Win, Awadallah and other luminous activists and artists from Minneapolis, the heart of revolt at the centre of Turtle Island.
This program culminates on Monday, April 13, 2026, from 2:30–3:30 p.m at CineCycle with an intimate follow-up conversation between Karthik Pandian and poet m. nourbeSe philip.
Karthik Pandian
Karthik Pandian is an artist and teacher developing ceremonial technologies. He has presented his works in moving image, sculpture, and performance at venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hammer Museum, and the New York Film Festival, and on digital platforms such as the Criterion Channel and Triple Canopy. He is a professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University.
Leila Awadallah
Leila Awadallah (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and film wanderer based between Minneapolis, Mni Sota Makoce and Beirut, Lebanon. Leila is a McKnight Dancer Fellow (2023), Jerome Hill Fellow (2021-2023), and previously a Springboard 20/20 and Daring Dances Fellow. Leila’s works have been supported through research residencies and performances at the Hammana Artist House, Amalgam, and Lebanese National Theatre (Lebanon), Camargo Foundation (France), Diyar School (Palestine), Arab American National Museum (Michigan), and most widely across spaces and places in and around her home in the Twin Cities. Mentored by Ananya Chatterjea, she trained, taught and performed with Ananya Dance Theatre as a company member (2014-2019) and she is a founding member of the Kelvin Wailey dance trio (2015-2023). She has also performed in works by Alexandre Paulikevitch, Paula Mann, Emily Jacir, Taja Will & Mathew Janczewski, Emily Gastinaeu, Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, Laura Osterhaus, Emma Marlar, and Karla Grotting. Leila has a BFA in Dance and minor in Arabic Language & Literature from the University of Minnesota.
In her free time she enjoys practicing Aikido, Tai Chi, and swimming. She is the Artistic Director and Founder of the Body Watani (body-as-homeland) dance project and practice in collaboration with Noelle Awadallah, Co-Artistic Director.
m. nourbeSe philip
Born in Tobago, m. nourbeSe philip is an unembedded poet, essayist, novelist and playwright who lives in the space-time of Toronto. A former lawyer, her published works include the award-winning YA novel, Harriet’s Daughter, the seminal poetry collection, She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks, the speculative prose poem, Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence, as well as her genre-breaking book-length epic, Zong! As told to the author by Setaey Adamu Boateng. She has written several collections of essays including Frontiers: Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture and A Genealogy of Resistance; her most recent collection is BlanK. philip is a fellow of both the Guggenheim and Rockefeller (Bellagio) Foundations and in 2020 was the recipient of PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. In 2021, she was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize by the Canada Council for her outstanding achievement in the arts. In 2023 she was the Bain-Swiggett Chair in Poetry at Princeton for the Spring semester. In 2024, she became a recipient of the Windham Campbell Award for Poetry.
