Impact Stories: Dysmocracy: The Fight Over Fluoride | Film 1
Our first film from the Impact Stories series is set in Port Angeles, WA.
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Dysmocracy follows an intense local debate over water fluoridation that gets so heated it threatens to destroy the town government, one of hundreds of fights over fluoride that have played out across the country. But this is about much more than fluoride – it’s about how passions over one issue can hijack political discussion, and how that leads to the broader struggle over science, trust, civil liberties, and democratic decision-making.
Audiences will be able to respond to the film in real time and share their thoughts during conversation with the filmmakers throughout the screening.
, Dysmocracy will be presented with open captions.
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Visit Impact Stories to learn more about the film series.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Mary Gates Hall (MGH). Campus room: Mary Gates Hall 389. Accessibility Contact: jordan@bxbcreative.com. Event Types: Screenings. Target Audience: UW Student and Public.
Friday, February 20, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM.
For more info visit www.eventbrite.com. Film Screening: 'Skin of Youth' with Ash Mayfair
UW Asian L&L and the Seattle International Film Festival co-host an award winning filmmaker Ash Mayfair at the SIFF Cinema Uptown for the screening of Skin of Youth (2025).
A Q&A moderated by Ungsan Kim will follow the screening. (See SIFF Schedule for details).
UW Faculty, Staff, and Students can use a discount code (UWMAYFAIR) or $5 off the ticket price.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Asian Languages and Literature. Event Types: Screenings.
Monday, February 23, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM.
Impact Stories: Boys on the Inside (select scenes) | Film 2
"Boys on the Inside (select scenes)" features in the second screening from the Impact Stories series.
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Christina, Sebastian and Sarah discovered their ‘boy’ identity while in women’s prison. Now on the outside they come together to face the long-term impact of incarceration as Latinx butch and trans masculine survivors, reclaiming their narratives through recovery and healing. This screening will feature select scenes from the new documentary, 17 years in the making.
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Discussion will focus on relationship-based storytelling, ethical collaboration with participants, and how to manage long-term documentary work.
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Visit Impact Stories to learn more about the film series.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Mary Gates Hall (MGH). Campus room: Mary Gates Hall 389. Accessibility Contact: jordan@bxbcreative.com. Event Types: Screenings. Target Audience: UW Student and Public.
Friday, February 27, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM.
For more info visit www.eventbrite.com. CMS Faculty Meeting
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Student Union Building (HUB). Campus room: HUB 238. Accessibility Contact: groening@uw.edu. Event Types: Meetings. Target Audience: CMS Faculty.
Friday, March 6, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM.
Digital/Data Humanities Lecture: Tonia Sutherland, "Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife"
In this talk, Resurrecting the Black Body, Sutherland examines the consequences of digitally raising the dead. Attending to the violent deaths of Black Americans–and the records that document them–from slavery through the present, Sutherland explores media evidence, digital acts of remembering, and the rights and desires of humans to be forgotten.
Tonia Sutherland is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Development in the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife (University of California Press, 2023). In addition to being the Founder and Director of PENDULUM and The Black Memory Collective. She also serves as Co-Director of the Community Archives Lab at UCLA and Co-Founder and Co-Director of AfterLab at the University of Washington Information School.
Event made possible by the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. This event is free and open to the…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Henry Art Gallery (HAG). Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, March 12, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
Works in Progress
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Allen Library (ALB). Campus room: Allen Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: groening@uw.edu. Event Types: Conferences. Target Audience: CMS Faculty, CMS Graduate Students.
Friday, March 13, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Crisis Alarm: Conversations Across Asian Cinema and Media
We are living through a time of crisis: the crisis of humanity vis-à-vis political violence and technological advancement, the crisis of the environment under accumulation, urbanization, and capitalism, the crisis of cinema in the age of digital, censorship, piracy, and ephemerality, and the crisis of area studies in the age of world target.
What is the role of cinema and media in responding to these crises? How do area studies provide us with alternative directions and new inspirations in the temporality of history, present, and future? AM Session (10-11:30am) – Keynote Speech: “Conditions for Trust: Filming The Light of East Asia in Wartime Chongqing”
Presented by Ying Qian, Columbia University
, PM Session (1-4pm) – Roundtable Discussion on “Crisis”
Moderated by James Tweedie, University of Washington
Yomi Braester, University of Washington
Belinda Qian He, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Ungsan Kim, University of Washington
Sudhir Mahadevan, University of Washington
Tze-Lan Sang, Michigan…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 202. Accessibility Contact: msiu2@uw.edu. Event Types: Conferences.
Monday, March 16, 2026, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM.
Impact Stories: True Dawgs: A Garfield Story | Film 3
We present "True Dawgs: A Garfield Story" as the third film feature in the Impact Stories series.
After gun violence at Garfield High School in Seattle, students use storytelling to process trauma, build solidarity, and assert control over their own narrative.
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True Dawgs centers youth voices and collective authorship, raising questions about representation, care, and the power of documentary as a tool for community healing and change.
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Visit Impact Stories to learn more about the film series.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Mary Gates Hall (MGH). Campus room: Mary Gates Hall 389. Accessibility Contact: jordan@bxbcreative.com. Event Types: Screenings. Target Audience: UW Student and Public.
Friday, March 20, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM.
For more info visit www.eventbrite.com. Impact Stories: The Island of the Shark: Guardians of Malpelo | Film 4
For the final screening from the Impact Stories series, we feature "The Island of the Shark: Guardians of Malpelo + Bonus Shorts".
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With breathtaking underwater cinematography and raw storytelling, The Island of the Shark: Guardians of Malpelo immerses audiences in one of Earth’s last wild sanctuaries - capturing harrowing encounters with illegal fishing, powerful partnerships between conservationists and the Colombian Navy, and the deep emotional connection between humans and the ocean. Beyond its beauty, the film is a rallying cry—urging nations, divers, and everyday citizens alike to defend sharks before it’s too late.
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Conversation will explore environmental storytelling, science communication, and the role of visual media in conservation action.
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Visit Impact Stories to learn more about the film series.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Mary Gates Hall (MGH). Campus room: Mary Gates Hall 389. Accessibility Contact: jordan@bxbcreative.com. Event Types: Screenings. Target Audience: UW Student and Public.
Friday, March 27, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM.
For more info visit www.eventbrite.com. CMS Faculty Meeting
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Padelford Hall (PDL). Campus room: TBD. Accessibility Contact: groening@uw.edu. Event Types: Meetings. Target Audience: CMS Faculty.
Friday, April 3, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM.
Admitted Student Day
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: groening@uw.edu. Event Types: Information Sessions. Special Events.
Saturday, April 4, 2026.
"Vulveeta": Film Screening and Q&A with Filmmaker Maria Breaux
“Internally-washed” lead singer Grrrilda Beausoleil is turning 50, and all she wants is a reunion with her 1990s riot grrrl band—the one she unceremoniously abandoned 20 years ago just as they were about to make it big. Hiring a scrappy film crew to document the journey, she navigates old wounds, new-age platitudes, and the realities of a San Francisco transformed by tech, displacement, and shifting cultural ground. The band must decide whether they can trust Grrrilda again—and whether their DIY roots of wheat paste, stickers, and zines can still build community in a digital age. What unfolds is a hilarious, improvised mockumentary—dubbed “SPINAL TAP with BIPOC and queers” by the Chicago Reader—that treats comedy as activism, honoring grassroots filmmaking and the enduring power of queer and BIPOC artmaking. The film production itself was centered in LGBTQ community building across generations: reconciling past and present, passing the mic (onstage and off!), and finding solidarity, joy, and resistance…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Allen Library (ALB). Campus room: Allen Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: groening@uw.edu. Event Types: Screenings.
Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM.
Filmmaker talk and behind-the-scenes of "Detention the Movie"
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Johnson Hall (JHN). Campus room: JHN 102. Accessibility Contact: groening@uw.edu. Event Types: Screenings.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
CMS Faculty Meeting
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Padelford Hall (PDL). Campus room: TBD. Accessibility Contact: groening@uw.edu. Event Types: Meetings. Target Audience: CMS Faculty.
Friday, May 1, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM.