John Ewing has headed the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque for a looooong time — four decades to be exact. He co-founded the organization in 1984 with Ron Holloway and Gordon Gund III. It moved to CIA in 1986, first in its old building on East Boulevard and now in its Euclid Avenue theater. In that time, he’s programmed thousands of films, both classic and new, many of which would never be screened in any other venue in town and many seen for the first time in Cleveland. He’s shown restored prints of old films and brand-new foreign and experimental films. He’s done series devoted to directors and a summer of classic comedies in response to some patrons saying his film selection tended to be grim.
But last August, he announced that this year would be his last, and he will step down on June 30. Now the Cinematheque has named his successor: Bilgesu Sisman, who will take over with a “meet the new director” program on June 29 where she’ll screen one of her favorite movies, the 1983 French film, Sans Soleil.
Born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, Sisman was director of programming at Omaha, Nebraska’s Film Streams and, most recently, Anapolis’ Maryland Hall cultural center. She’s also a philosophy PhD candidate at Chicago’s DePaul University, where she has taught courses in film and philosophy.
“I am a strong believer in the transformative potential of cinema, of it having a specific power to make us think in novel ways,” Sisman says in the press release announcing her hiring. “As French philosopher Alain Badiou states, it is the art form that is able to contain within itself the building blocks of all other arts, giving it the ability to move us in many different ways. Moreover, cinema spectatorship encourages convening and opens up a path for people to connect, whether at the theater lobby or on social media. My hope is for the Cinematheque to be a sanctuary for contemplation, creativity, and connection for all current and future audiences at CIA and in the greater Cleveland community.”
Meet her June 29, and follow Cinematheque’s programming here.
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106
Cleveland, OH 44106