Mobile Cinema

Beginning in April 2023, Duke Arts joined forces with Duke’s Cinematic Arts program and its celebrated Screen/Society series to extend Mobile Cinema — an initiative that began on campus during the pandemic — into community settings in and around downtown Durham. The series began with Nuestro Durham, an evening of programming celebrating Durham’s Latinx community through documentary screenings, discussions with the filmmakers, and an opening performance by Danza Azteca (Aztec Dance). In August, Mobile Cinema came to the Durham County Library’s main branch with a double-bill of blockbuster features engaging the theme of climate change: Hayao Miyazaki’s epic animated masterpiece Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Jan de Bont’s live-action blockbuster Twister (1996), with live music and food in the library’s outdoor amphitheater. In December, Mobile Cinema concluded its programming for the year with a pair of pop-up screenings in Durham’s Five Points and Golden Belt districts, casting excerpts from documentarian H. Lee Waters’ circa-WWII footage of Durham onto buildings to offer pedestrians a glimpse of Durham’s past — and an unexpected encounter with its former inhabitants.