Requiem for a River explores the New Mexico stretch of the Rio Grande — an iconic but endangered American waterway — in a time of climate change and calls for environmental justice. Through lyrical imagery and in-depth interviews with a diverse range of residents — Native, Latinx, Indo-Hispanic, and Anglo — this visually poetic documentary reveals the once-mighty river’s role as a lifeline in the desert and asks whether the keys to a more sustainable, equitable future lie in New Mexico’s ancient past.

----

Mary Patierno is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and editor whose most recent film, Requiem for a River, is a documentary that uses the Rio Grande as a vehicle to explore the most pressing issues of our time; climate change, water rights, indigenous rights, environmental injustice and the future of agriculture. Her last film, the Ford Foundation funded, Nothing Without Us: The Women Who Will End AIDS (2017), screened throughout North America, Europe, and Africa, including Hot Docs, DocNYC, Cineffable Paris and the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa in 2016 and Montreal in 2022. Previous work includes Vieques: Worth Every Bit of Struggle and The Most Unknowable Thing, which was selected as part of The New Documentaries (2000) series at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. It was nominated for a 2000 International Documentary Association (IDA) Achievement Award and was awarded Outstanding Documentary Feature in the Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Washington DC Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals.

Her collaborations include Abigail Child (Origin of the Species, A Shape of Error, On the Downlow and Surf and Turf, Starfish Media Group (Revisiting Haiti and Heroin County USA), Tania Cypriano (Grandma Has a Video Camera), the PBS News Hour, Diller + Scofidio, Asia Society, 651/Brooklyn Academy of Music, Vanguard Films, Univision, University of Massachusetts and USAID.

Mary is a 2021 recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship and a two-time recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She was also a co-founder and Executive Producer of the ground-breaking public access cable show, DYKETV.

Time: 6:30 — 8:30 pm EST

Free!

Registration