Rebecca Shapass – “no more room in hell” Lecture and Film Screening at the Byrd Theatre on February 22nd

Rebecca Shapass – no more room in hell
Lecture and Film Screening at the Byrd Theatre (2908 W Cary St, Richmond, VA 23221)
Wednesday, February 22, 6:30pm

Program Schedule

6:10 – Doors open, screening of Shapass’ short film nickel for a silver screen (2022, 11min loop)

6:30 – Lecture, no more room in hell

7:05 – Intermission

7:15 – Screening of Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero, 96min)

***Thanks to the generosity of the Byrd Theatre and Janus Films, this event and screening of Night of the Living Dead are FREE to all current VCU students, staff and faculty. You must present a valid VCU id for free admission. 
General admission is $8. Tickets available HERE!

ABOUT THE LECTURE

no more room in hell is an ongoing research project and ​in-progress ​experimental film​ that began with inquiries conducted at the archive of horror director George A. Romero (dir. Night of the Living Dead) housed at the University of Pittsburgh. The multimedia artist talk/lecture combines Shapass’ research with audio-visual elements from her in-progress cinematic work to explore the zombie as a posthuman species. It follows threads from Romero’s archive through Pittsburgh’s shifting industry sectors, with a particular interest in autonomous vehicle development and contemporary data collection practices in the region. Shapass’ spin presents Romero’s zombie as an embodiment of apocalyptic futurity, representing the ways in which our fears of the future are often shaped by the ghosts of the past.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Rebecca Shapass is a filmmaker and artist from Staten Island, New York. Through her films and videos, photographs, installations, performances, and texts, Shapass’ works utilize and destabilize documentary sensibilities. Her research-based practice is a tool for probing the unfixed nature of perception and its relationship to knowledge, intimacy, and power. Her work has been exhibited and screened with institutions and festivals including Microscope Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Knockdown Center (Queens, NY), and Open Signal (Portland, OR), amongst others. She has participated in residencies with Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), Signal Culture (Owego, NY), and Crosstown Arts (Memphis, TN). Rebecca graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she studied Film & Television and Art History. She is currently pursuing her MFA at Carnegie Mellon University (2023).

ABOUT NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

(from the Criterion Collection website) — Shot outside Pittsburgh on a shoestring budget by a band of filmmakers determined to make their mark, Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror master George A. Romero, is a great story of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time. A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead, flesh-eating ghouls, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-1960s America literally tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combining gruesome gore with acute social commentary and quietly breaking ground by casting a Black actor (Duane Jones) in its lead role.

Night of the Living Dead was restored by the Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation and the Celeste Bartos Preservation Fund.

This program is organized and presented by The Anderson, VCUarts, in collaboration with the Byrd Theatre (Richmond, VA) and with support from Janus Films (New York, NY) . 

For questions or comments please contact Monica Kinsey at kinseym@vcu.edu.