Picture Lock 2025 spotlights groundbreaking films supported by the Film/Video Studio at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Complete program details: 

The Revolution, Televised: Not Channel Zero 
Thu Mar 20 | 3 PM 
George Sosa of Black Planet Productions in person 
Free for all audiences  

Under the motto “The Revolution, Televised,” Black Planet Productions created community programming for public access television in New York City  that examined contemporary issues in race, gender, politics, culture, and education. This program features two works for their video series Not Channel Zero, both supported by a 1993 Film/Video Studio residency: a short examining the legacy of Malcolm X and an unfinished work that provides an overview of the collective’s approach to media activism. (approx. 76 mins., DCP) 

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire 
(2024)  
Thu Mar 20 | 6 PM 
Director Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich in person 
Ohio Premiere  

Set amid a lush Caribbean-inspired landscape—captured using the Wexner Center's 16mm film camera—this award-winning film provides a narrative account of the life and legacy of Suzanne Césaire, an Afro-surrealist poet and anti-colonial activist who didn't receive the recognition she was due in her lifetime. At the same time, the film elicits an awareness of its own production, blurring the lines between drama and documentary. In English and French with English subtitles. (75 mins., DCP) 

Como Vivimos (How We Live) 
(2024) 
Fri Mar 21 | 4:30 PM 
Director Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz in person 
Ohio Premiere 

A timely examination of labor, immigration, and unwieldy laws, Como Vivimos (How We Live) follows the complicated lives of Mexican American farm workers. They play an essential role in supplying produce to US food retailers, yet due to an antiquated set of policies around migrant worker housing, these American citizens are forced to uproot their lives and families every December and move at least 50 miles away for three months.  In Spanish and English with English subtitles. (73 mins., DCP) 

How to Have an American Baby 
(2023)  
Fri Mar 21 | 7 PM 
Director Leslie Tai in person 
Midwest Premiere  

There's a booming shadow economy catering to Chinese tourists who travel to the US to give birth, all to provide their babies with US citizenship. Told through a series of interwoven storylines, Tai’s creative documentary takes us inside bedrooms, living rooms, and delivery rooms to reveal the story of this hidden global industry and the impact on the ordinary people caught up in it. In English and Mandarin with English subtitles. (117 mins., DCP) 

From the Archive: Media Criticism and the Middle East 
Sat Mar 22 | Noon 
Free for all audiences  

This program highlights the Film/Video Studio’s history of supporting artists and filmmakers dedicated to political advocacy and media activism through two works. Afif Arabi’s In My Beard Forever (1999) traces the impact of media stereotypes on an anonymous Arab American man, while Jayce Salloum and Walid Raad’s Talaeen a Junuub (Up to the South, 1993) explores the differences between forms of South Lebanese political resistance against Israeli occupation in the early 1990s and how they were represented in the West. (program approx. 77 mins., DCP) 

Picture Lock Shorts 
Sat Mar 22 | 2 PM  

This program features an array of short films by artists such as Grace Mitchell and Cherry Nin, each completed in 2024 during a Film/Video Studio residency. The grouping explores narrative and documentary film conventions and embraces the rich gray area between what is real and what is created. Seen together, the shorts connect through examinations of love, community, family, and memory, and their representations in film form. (program approx. 88 mins., DCP) 

The Dells 
(2024)  
Sat Mar 22 | 4 PM 
Director Nellie Kluz in person 
Ohio Premiere  

Every summer, students come from around the globe to work in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, the “Waterpark Capital of the World.” They arrive with temporary J-1 visas in hand to fill a variety of low-wage service jobs. The Dells follows a cohort of “J-1s” as they experience life abroad in a small Midwestern town, reflecting the disconnect between the American Dream and the reality of being underpaid, overworked, and far from home. In English, Turkish, and Spanish with English subtitles. (72 mins., DCP) 

Picture Lock Reception 
Sat Mar 22 | 6 PM 
Free for all audiences  

Join filmmakers and fellow festival goers in the Wexner Center’s Lower Lobby for a reception with light snacks and a cash bar. 

Please Hold 
(2025)  
Sat Mar 22 | 7 PM 
Director Alexandra Juhasz in person 
Ohio Premiere  

Twice in Juhasz’s life, very different friends have asked her to record them on their deathbeds. Jim, a gay, white, male go-go dancer, died painfully of AIDS at age 29 in the early 1990s, before treatment medications were widely available. Juanita, a Black, disabled, queer feminist media activist, died in 2022 in her sixties, largely due to inequities in the American healthcare system and COVID-19. Please Hold is a bold, personal documentary engaging with decades of activist media and the wisdom of many living AIDS workers to assemble connections between the legacy of Juhasz’s two friends, and to celebrate their lives. In English with English subtitles. (71 mins., DCP)  

Press page thumbnail image: Como Vivimos (How We Live), courtesy of filmmaker Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz