Great Expectations
Kamila Kuc is an experimental filmmaker, scholar, writer, and curator who runs the media production program at Coventry University in Coventry, England.
In this interview with Kamila Kuc on a sunny March day in front of Ann Arbor’s Michigan Theater—with the 56th Ann Arbor Film Festival incipient—Kuc tells the story of having submitted two earlier films to the AAFF previously before her 2017 work, I Think You Should Come to America, was accepted for screening this year.
Kuc’s 21-minute work evaluates the sense of enchantment with America that the filmmaker experienced as a teenage girl from Communist Poland. Using 16mm American films to explore patterns of cultural representation, Kuc’s piece also investigates the cultural conditions in which memories are created.
Here, Kuc reveals how her teenaged political activism on behalf of Native Americans introduced her to the subject of her film. She also shares her excitement about coming to the festival for the first time this year to present a curated program of films, Disasters of Peace, as well as her own work.
“I can’t underestimate the amount of feedback I got at various festivals for my work in progress, the current film that I got in,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been the same film without that, and I think Ann Arbor is definitely a champion of that kind of community-building.
“My only expectation of this festival—and it’s not a small one—is to really engage in insightful conversations with the audiences.”
