The Tailenders Screening & Discussion with the Filmmaker Adele Horne

The 2014-2015 Religion and Politics Film Series brings together four documentaries that draw our attention to the many roles that religion and technology play in shaping categories of identity and metrics of exclusion in public life and private practice. Although approaching a wide range of subject matter, each film exposes the subtle but powerful influences that technologies exert on our bodies, minds, and imaginations. In each of these films, race, religion, and nation emerge as contested spaces for defining community and otherness, belonging and exclusion, insider and outsider—categories in which the boundaries of religion and politics often collapse. The filmmaker will be present to discuss their work and answer questions immediately following each screening.

The Tailenders (2006) by Adele Horne is the second film presented in the Religion and Politics Film Series. Filmed in the Solomon Islands, Mexico, India, and the United States, the film explores the connections between missionary activity and global capitalism by examining the missionary organization Gospel Recordings’ use of ultra-low-tech audio devices to evangelize indigenous communities facing crises caused by global economic forces. The film raises questions about how people who receive the recordings understand them and how meaning changes as it crosses language and culture.

Adele Horne makes observational and essayistic films.  Her work has been broadcast nationally on P.O.V. and has been shown internationally at venues including the Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Morelia International Film Festival, Los Angeles FilmForum, and the Flaherty Film Seminar.  Horne’s film and videos have won prizes at the Independent Spirit Awards, the Images Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the Chicago Underground Film Festival.    Adele received an M.F.A. in film and video from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. from Williams College.  She teaches filmmaking at California Institute of the Arts.

Dinner will be provided immediately following this event. Please RSVP to help with our food service.

Free and open to all.