Brown Arts Institute
Rigorously Curated
Ongoing
FILM FESTIVAL
Films that put the "CULT" in culture.
Rigorously Curated
Ongoing
FILM FESTIVAL
Films that put the "CULT" in culture.
Past Festivals
Fall 2025
Trash Camp Super Queer What Even Are Human Bodies Vaguely Dancerly Sci-Fi Film Festival
A festival of films that put the "CULT" in culture! This season’s selection of films “rigorously curated” by Sydney Skybetter and guest-curator Raja Feather Kelly includes: Cats, Black Swan, Ex Machina, Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Twilight, Suspiria (1979), Annihilation, and Arrival.
Rigorously Curated: Trash Camp Film Festival Recap
Thank you to everyone who joined us this semester for the TRASHIEST, CAMPIEST, QUEERIEST, MOST DANCERLY SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL! The films were all very good (debatable!) but what made this first-ever Rigorously Curated truly great was YOU!
Highlights
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Students engage with a captivating opening presentation by curators Sydney Skybetter and Raja Feather Kelly during the "Rigorously Curated" film series at the Martinos Auditorium.
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Students participate in a swan-themed origami workshop at the Granoff Center prior to the Black Swan screening.
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Post-screening conversation with writer, director, and star John Cameron Mitchell and Raja Feather Kelly
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In a playful nod to the film Cats, students use custom augmented reality cat filters developed by the Creative Arts and Technology Spaces (CATS).
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Brown Arts Institute staff transformed the Martinos Auditorium entryway with refractive transparent streamers to create an immersive atmosphere for the screening of Annihilation.
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Curators Sydney Skybetter and Raja Feather Kelly capture a commemorative moment together before one of the "Rigorously Curated" film screenings.
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Ahead of the Arrival screening, the BAI team created a retrospective display incorporating thematic elements from all eight previous "Rigorously Curated" film sessions.
About Sydney Skybetter
Sydney Skybetter is a choreographer. Hailed by the Financial Times as “One of the world’s foremost thinkers on the intersection of dance and emerging technologies,” Sydney’s choreography has been performed at such venues as The Kennedy Center and Jacob’s Pillow. He has lectured at SXSW, Yale, Mozilla and the Boston Dynamics AI Institute, and consulted for The National Ballet of Canada, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Hasbro, and The University of Southern California, among others. His work has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and a Creative Capital “Wild Futures” Award. He is a Senior Affiliate of metaLAB at Harvard University, a frequent contributor to WIRED and Dance Magazine, the Founder of the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces and Host of the podcast, “Dances with Robots.” Sydney serves as the Director of the Brown Arts Institute, is an Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, and was the first choreographer at Brown University to receive tenure.