Stand in the Stream, Stanya Kahn, US 2011–17, 60'

Stand in the Stream is a fast-paced digital film about life and death and the inextricability of the personal from the political. Made over the course of six years and shot on multiple camera formats to reflect our screen-saturated culture, it captures candid moments in online chat rooms, in the home, in the streets, and in the wild. The film’s title references a brief interlude in Bertolt Brecht’s play Man Equals Man from 1926, which examines the forced transformation of an ordinary citizen into a ruthless soldier: the pliability of identity in modern society. From the birth of the artist’s own son to the physical deterioration of her activist mother, from Tahrir Square to Standing Rock and the events of the 2016 US presidential elections, Stand in the Stream is a contemporary ode and a story for the people.