Sept. 30: Free Oscar-Winning Short Film Screening & Discussion at CUNY Graduate Center

FREE; in-person or online reservations required at: ​​https://www.gc.cuny.edu/public-programs

As Natalie Musteata (Ph.D. ’19, Art History) worked on her dissertation, she and her partner spent their weekends writing movie scripts. The result was the satirical absurdist film Two People Exchanging Saliva, for which she and Alexandre Singh won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short last year. Set in a dystopian Paris where kissing is outlawed and transactions are completed through slaps to the face, the film follows Angine, a discontented woman whose fascination with a playful salesgirl draws suspicion from a jealous colleague. The 36-minute French-language short examines themes of repression, desire, and surveillance. At the Oscars, in a moment of breathless surprise, co-writer and co-director Musteata thanked the Academy “for supporting a film that is weird and that is queer and that is made by a majority of women.”

After a screening, Musteata joins in conversation with Singh, co-filmmaker and visual artist; Claire Bishop, presidential professor of Art History, CUNY Graduate Center; and Elizabeth Alsop, coordinator and faculty, Film and Media Cultures, CUNY Graduate Center.

Presented with the Certificate Program in Film and Media Cultures, the Ph.D. Program in Art History, and the Center for the Humanities.