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three fold special section—fall 2025



Media City Film Festival & Trinosophes Projects Present Detroit Screenings with Kevin Jerome Everson In-Person

November 2025

Media City Film Festival (MCFF) and Trinosophes Projects present two free screenings curated by MCFF Artistic Director, Oona Mosna, showcasing films by Kevin Jerome Everson that span nearly twenty years of the artist’s prolific output (2007–2024). Ranging from early enigmatic fragments of 50-year-old found footage through to studied compositions of celestial bodies, this survey captures elements from both MCFF’s long history of exhibiting Everson’s work and the artist’s polyvalent approach to moving images, rooted in the experience and representational construction of the Midwest Black working class.

Timed to coincide with one of Everson’s visits to the area to begin a new Knight Arts Foundation-supported MCFF commissioned film, which will observe celestial space from the unique vantage point of metro Detroit, these two rare events unite partners including Michigan Central, Detroit Public Library, Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, Detroit Narrative Agency, Warren Astronomical Society, Cranbrook Observatory, Picture Palace Pictures, and NOVA24 Photo + Film Festival, among others. Films appear courtesy the artist and Picture Palace Pictures.



KEYS TO THE CITY: An Evening with Kevin Jerome Everson

Saturday, November 15, 6 p.m.
Newlab at Michigan Central
2050 15th Street, Detroit, MI 48216
Free admission

Conversation between Kevin Jerome Everson and Danielle Eliska.
Discussion moderated by Kelly Kivland, Director and Lead Curator, Michigan Central Art.
Introduction by Trinosophes Projects Artistic Director Rebecca Mazzei.
Film screening curated by MCFF Artistic Director Oona Mosna.
Partners: Modern Ancient Brown & NOVA24 Photo + Film Festival. 
[Link to full program]



THREE QUARTERS: The Cinema of Kevin Jerome Everson

Tuesday, November 18, 6 p.m.
Detroit Public Library Main Branch
5201 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202
Free admission | Link to RSVP

Introduction by Paige Wood, MCFF Regional Engagement.
Film screening curated by MCFF Artistic Director Oona Mosna.
Partners: Detroit Public Library & Detroit Narrative Agency.  

[Link to full program]

ABOUT KEVIN JEROME EVERSON


Kevin Jerome Everson (USA) is an artist and filmmaker born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1965. He has completed more than 300 solo and collaborative shorts and feature-length films since 1997, quietly assembling one of the most remarkable collections of contemporary African American life ever committed to cinema. Everson’s films frequently depict Black working-class communities, stretching across a variety of themes and subjects including migration, illusion, astronomy, human kinetics, entomology, musicology, ornithology, historical reenactment, and the folktale. He received a BFA from the University of Akron and an MFA from Ohio University (1990). His films have been exhibited widely at festivals, museums, and galleries internationally, including Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, BlackStar Film Festival, New York Film Festival, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Toronto International Film Festival, Walker Art Center, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Locarno Film Festival and Venice Film Festival. He has received retrospectives at Cinéma du Réel, Centre Pompidou, Harvard Film Archive, Tate Modern, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul, Visions du Réel, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Media City Film Festival. His work has been featured at the 2008, 2012, and 2017 Whitney Biennials, the 2013 Sharjah Biennial, the 2018 Carnegie International, the 2023 Contour Biennale, and the 2024 Thailand Biennale. He has received an American Academy in Rome Prize (2002), a Herb Alpert Award (2012), a Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities (2019), an American Academy in Berlin Prize (2020), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and grants and commissions from Creative Capital, Just Films/Ford Foundation and Sundance Art of Non-Fiction. Media City Film Festival has screened more than 50 films by Everson since 2009. He lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he is the Commonwealth and Ruffin Foundation Distinguished Professor of Studio Art and Director of Studio Arts at the University of Virginia.




ABOUT THE KNIGHT NEW WORK INITIATIVE


Organized with support from the Knight Art Foundation’s Knight New Work program, Media City Film Festival is collaborating with Trinosophes Projects and globally-celebrated African American artist Kevin Jerome Everson to commission a new astral-focused moving image artwork that captures cosmic space from the remarkable perspective of Metro Detroit. Incorporating the use of analog cameras, precision telescopes, and other celestial technologies at area observatories and planetariums, this multi-faceted initiative includes creation, exhibition, and community engagement activities that empower participants to explore the cosmos from the vantage point of Detroit’s rich stargazing history and resources. Additional partnership and support provided by Michigan Central, Detroit Public Library, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, Detroit Narrative Agency, Warren Astronomical Society, Cranbrook Observatory, Picture Palace Pictures, and Nova 24 Photo + Film Festival. 

Lead image: Portrait © Léa Rener courtesy Cinema du réel, Paris.

Fig. 2-3: Film stills © Kevin Jerome Everson courtesy the artist; trilobite-arts DAC and Picture Palace Pictures. 
Fig. 4: Exhibition detail, Moonshine: The Celestial Films of Kevin Jerome Everson (2023). Photo courtesy Media City Film Festival © Oona Mosna.



Founded in 2020, Three Fold is an independent quarterly based in Detroit that presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film and the performing arts. We solicit and commission contributions from artists, writers, and activists around the world. Three Fold is a publication of Trinosophes Projects, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in the historic Eastern Market district in downtown Detroit. Click here to check out Three Fold’s events page and view a schedule of the publication’s on-site activities.

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