Two Meetings and a Funeral is an 85-minute historical opus by the artist Naeem Mohaiemen about the rise and fall of the 1970s Third World resistance movements that once threatened the emergent Western neoliberal order. By juxtaposing archival footage with a contemporary walking tour through Algiers, Dhaka, and New York, Mohaiemen asks of the failed socialist movements in the global South: “What went wrong?” In the context of this writer's cinephilia, what drew me to watch and rewatch Naeem Mohaiemen's latest film was not only its timely subject matter but also its wondrous big-screen delivery. Mohaiemen savors the possibilities of an expansive three-screen presentation in high definition with 5.1-surround sound. Which prompts other fundamental questions: What exactly constitutes gallery art and what belongs in a cinema? Where does this expansive, gripping, and elegant piece of filmmaking truly belong?

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2017
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