U-M Creative Currents

Impossible Conversations (Part 1)

• Season 3 • Episode 3

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In this episode of U-M Creative Currents, host Mark Clague welcomes award-winning documentary filmmaker, Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Documentary Practices at London College of Communication, Pratāp Rughani, to discuss his latest film installation and exhibition: Impossible Conversations.

The episode examines the complexities of restorative justice and the personal transformations that can arise when individuals with strongly opposing ideologies find a way to communicate. 

[Trigger Warning: This episode discusses themes of gun violence, white supremacy, hate crimes, and the 2012 Oak Creek Sikh Temple shooting. Listener discretion is advised.]

In part II, we’ll talk with ARIA recipient for this project and filmmaker, U-M Professor David Chung, who helped bring this film to life and to U-M’s Stamps Gallery. 


Season 3, Episode 3
Participants: Pratāp Rughani

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[00:00:14.178] Mark Clague:
Welcome to Creative Currents, a Michigan arts podcast where we discuss collaborative creativity and how the arts can spark meaningful conversations. I'm your host, Mark Clague, and today we're joined in conversation with a filmmaker who has created a film about conversation, specifically very difficult conversations. Dr. Pratap Raghani is visiting us from the UK where he's a professor of documentary practice at the University of the Arts, London, and he has received an ARIA grant in our partnership with the Office for Vice President for Research with Professor David Chung from Stamps and Korean Studies to create a film called Impossible Conversations. So Prantip, tell us about the film. What is it about?

[00:01:27.331] Mark Clague:
conversations. Well, that's fantastic because we're really trying to get that interdisciplinary arts research to happen. And so it's great to see someone putting those ideas into action. So the film is about a conversation, a seemingly impossible dialogue between two men in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the aftermath of some pretty horrific violence. And the film opens and we got to see it this weekend. So with the voice of a man named Arno Michaelis, right? Yes. And who's a member of a white supremacist gang. In fact, he founded that gang. And it's a of this gang that has killed seven people from the Oak Creek Sikh Temple, right, in Milwaukee in 2012. And among those murdered is one of the founders of the temple and it's his son who is in this dialogue with Arno, right? So we have these two men who have been on sort of opposite sides of this horrific event and yet they're brought into dialogue. So how did you come to find out about this amazing connection between these two men and what are you hoping this film sort of achieves?

[00:03:46.479] Mark Clague:
For me, it was incredibly powerful to see the film in part because, I mean, I've heard about white supremacy, but this is not part of my day-to-day experience. You know, a lot of times, you know, these sort of hate groups and, you know, they're they're hidden away, right? They're not, they're part of, maybe there's a community and social media is bringing them to the fore, but you don't see an extended conversation with a man who says, I was part of a white supremacist group and, you know, I walk the streets of Milwaukee looking for people of color to injure. I mean, you know, and so it was very powerful just to see that. And what was your thinking of having the film open in that way?

[00:07:17.031] Mark Clague:
I was really impressed with the courage of the son of Pardeep Kaleka and sort of his willingness to enter into a dialogue you know having had his own father you know killed and his community sort of traumatised His children were at the temple when it was attacked, you know, the story he tells. And yet he seems to have translated his personal grief and his personal suffering into, you know, a kind of calling to the community to heal and this kind of restorative justice process you've invoked. But it just seemed like his response was really extraordinary and quite special.

[00:10:39.849] Mark Clague:
purpose? Right. And seeing it as maybe indicative of the system rather than the individuals, or at least there being some shared responsibility.

[00:11:28.480] Mark Clague:
that was so powerful, powerfully said, and I think it is so pertinent to our times. But one of the things in my experience of the film is it's a relatively short film. 29 minutes, 45. this relentless optimism and action. But it's clear that the film is a beginning of something. It's not the complete story. And so I think that was one of the really interesting artistic choices you've made by sort of not giving the conclusion. I got the message as a viewer that I was supposed to enter this story, that I was supposed to have this optimism and to have the courage to enter into some of these conversations 
[00:13:43.825] Mark Clague:
Yeah, no, that was really clear and visceral for me in experiencing the film. The film is really fabulous from an artistic standpoint. I mean, so you mentioned the format, so it's, you know, you'd have to give me the dimensions, but it's a very, it's not

[00:14:05.268] Mark Clague:
way it's projected super wide it's like this giant rectangle yeah and uh yeah it fills up you can't even be you can barely even see the whole thing at once i was sitting in like the second row but one of the interesting things you do with that is for example during the the dialogue where the two men are talking to each other you see two views of them simultaneously yeah the one of of the sort of a medium shot of the two of them seated and then one a close up of the speaker and so what was interesting to me about that as a viewer was the sort of the way it sort of visualized different perspectives simultaneously to having to look at things from different angles and at the same time and understand it from both the speaker's perspective and the listener's perspective or the person in dialogue so was that intentional?

[00:18:08.667] Mark Clague:
That was very powerful for me. How did, how does sound and sort of the sound design fit into that? I mean, there's music in there, but it's also a very clean, open, there's, there are periods of, you know, silence of without music, obviously, that sort of seem to create that openness that you mentioned.

[00:20:21.105] Mark Clague:
lost at that temple shooting. So the film is called Impossible Conversations. And of course it features an actual conversation that's happening, but you're trying to inspire a sort of a domino effect of these difficult conversations. And so can you talk a little bit about where this film will go? I mean, I know we're seeing this as part of a larger educational project, right, to bring students to show this film and bring it into galleries really worldwide at your university, obviously at the University of Michigan as well.

[00:23:36.513] Mark Clague:
That's beautiful. And the way, for me, the way the petals sort of reaching up to the light almost sort of creates an image of that relentless optimism.

[00:24:16.636] Mark Clague:
no it's fantastic and it's you know i can just feel in the world around us right now people pulling away for from conversation right that the the public sphere has become so sort of dangerous or, you know, frightening that people are not speaking and afraid to speak, afraid to be seen. And that just really makes me fearful for the future in certain ways 
[00:25:33.019] Mark Clague:
you. And thanks to David for this work. And, you know, just it's really exciting to see it move forward and the arts being a place where we can acknowledge and affirm one another's humanity and where sort of aesthetics can open up a space of possibility, you know, for these difficult conversations. So if someone listening to the podcast wants to catch it in Ann Arbor, where can they go? The Stamps Gallery of Art on South Division Division Street. Division Street, yeah. So it's just off campus. It's a very easy walking distance to Central Campus, but just off of campus, yeah. And it's open 9 to 5 weekends. Is the film sort of running continuously?

[00:26:37.030] Mark Clague:
there until February 8th, 2025. So head over there right now. And thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Mark. To learn more about the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative please visit our website at arts.umich.edu thanks for listening.