The Past Ahead: Screening and Discussion with artist Aline Motta

The second event in Manuel Borja-Villel’s program as Fall 2026 KJC Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilization presents The Past Ahead, featuring two films by Brazilian artist Aline Motta: A água é uma máquina do tempo (Water Is a Time Machine) (2022, 30 min) and Filha Natural (Natural Daughter) (2019, 16 min).

Water Is a Time Machine travels through family memories, personal archives and fragments of history. At its heart, it is the story of the artist’s mother, whose life and death becomes a point of departure for a journey across generations. Moving between Rio de Janeiro, past and present, the film brings together photographs, writings, documents and imagined scenes. Memories surface, overlap and change, creating connections between lives separated by time. Aline Motta explores how we inherit stories, how we remember those who are gone, and how the past continues to shape the present.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with Borja-Villel, Aline Motta, and Pat Gonzalez, Espacio de Culturas’ 2026 Public Humanities Fellow.