Doc Studies DOC TALKS, Latest News, Spring 2026 Lineup

Doc Talk: Always with Hansen Lin

Please join us for a screening and Q&A with filmmaker and producer Hansen Lin to discuss his and Deming Chen’s award-winning film Always on February 23rd at Kellen Auditorium.

Set in the countryside of Hunan, ALWAYS traces the inner world of Gong Youbin, born into poverty and separated from his mother since infancy. Through a poetry class at school, Gong discovers writing as a means of imagination and emotional exploration. As childhood dreams coexist with the harsh realities of family life, the film becomes an allegory for innocence lost and the quiet inevitability of growing up.

Program Duration: 87 min

About the Filmmaker

Hansen Lin is a Chinese independent producer based in New York, where he founded TimeLight Films, a production company dedicated to breaking boundaries between reality and cinema and amplifying underrepresented voices and stories. He has produced author-driven films across both nonfiction and fiction. His latest producing credit, Always (dir. Deming Chen, 2025), won the DOX:AWARD at CPH:DOX and received numerous awards at international film festivals. He is an alum of EURODOC and the Film Independent Producing Fellowship.

Please join us for this screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor of Media Studies.

Doc Studies DOC TALKS, Spring 2026 Lineup

Doc Talk: Looking for Horses with Stefan Pavlovic

Please join us for a screening and Q&A with filmmaker Stefan Pavlovic to discuss his film Looking for Horses on January 26 at Kellen Auditorium.

Looking for Horses is a film about a friendship between a filmmaker and a fisherman who, after losing his hearing in a war, retreats to a remote lake to live in near solitude. The filmmaker, himself struggling with speech and a fractured sense of belonging, finds in the fisherman both a guide and a mirror. Despite their limitations, a bond forms as the fisherman opens his world to the young man — a world of giant catfish, wild horses, vast silences, and sudden storms. For one, the lake is a refuge from a broken land; for the other, it is a way back toward it. As they search for ways to communicate, the camera becomes their shared language. Taking the form of a gentle western, Looking for Horses is a poetic documentary about trauma, survival, and the fragile work of connection.

Program Duration: 88 min

About the Filmmaker

Stefan Pavlović is an award-winning filmmaker currently based in Amsterdam. His debut feature film Looking for Horses (2021) has been screened at over forty international film festivals, and won fifteen prizes, among others, the Burning Lights Competition at Visions du Reel, Jury Prize at Sarajevo Film Festival, Grand Prix at RIDM, Best Film at Kasseler Dokfest. Stefan was awarded the Prins Bernhard Documentary Stipend in 2021 and was selected for the Berlinale Talents program in 2022. Pavlović is a programmer at the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival in The Hague, the Netherlands. He received his BA in film directing at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and his MA at the Netherlands Film Academy in Artistic Research in and through Cinema.

Please join us for this screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor of Media Studies.