Cinema in the Age of Streaming: A Conversation with Pablo de Ocampo
In our age of streaming, what role does a physical cinema have? Pablo de Ocampo, Walker’s director and curator of Moving Image, sits down to discuss access to films, artist-driven approaches, as well as the past, present, and possible futures of cinema at the Walker.

Jake Yuzna
Let’s start with the term “moving image.” What does moving image mean at the Walker?
Pablo de Ocampo
The Moving Image Department at the Walker supports artists who use film, video, and more broad moving image practices like animation in their artistic production. Moving Image was previously known as Film/Video, but was renamed to highlight that artists who use moving image do so in many different platforms and spaces. One of the things I find special about the Walker is its location alongside other practices. How do other artistic disciplines like performance, music, and visual art rub up against what is happening in moving image?
JY
How does the experience of seeing something in the Walker Cinema differ from other cinemas, multiplex, or traditional movie theaters?
PO
For starters, the cinema at the Walker is a better movie theater than most movie theaters. (laughs) When you come and see a movie here, it’s going to look really good. There won’t be problems with the exit lights bleeding onto the screen, sound channels that are out, or other sorts of technical problems. When you come and see a film here, you will experience it in one of the best possible presentation conditions. That is something that really follows through to the Walker in general. It is a place that really supports artists and wants their work to be seen in the best possible light.
As for the types of work we present in Moving Image, it’s less about a specific style of filmmaking or a particular type of artist. We do show some films that might have screened at your local multiplex movie theater and others that would never have had the chance to.
Instead, I like to characterize it more as how and why work is being shown here. What does it mean to look at a film by an artist or filmmaker within the broader context of a contemporary art center?
JY
What sets the moving image programming at the Walker apart from others?
PO
The Walker’s history is being a museum that is artist centered. We really try to embrace that in the cinema by making it a space that is of use to an artist. We approach a lot of artists with the question, “Here are the resources, what can we do for you?” An artist can go to any number of cinemas anywhere, show their film, and do a Q & A after. We like to ask: What can be done in this specific cinema, in this specific city, in this region, and within this museum?
We aim to be meaningful and approach our program through the lens of how it benefits the artists and the broader place the Walker holds in the city. [The Walker is a] cultural anchor that has many different local publics. We aim to have an artist-driven approach that benefits the filmmakers and the local audiences.
JY
What do you mean by an “artist-driven approach”?
PO
When you go see a film at a movie theater or watch something on a streaming service, there is this very kind of detached relationship. You show up and just watch the film. It can be easily forgotten that the cinema is a social space, too. I love the general social atmosphere of a cinema, whether that’s in the mall or at a museum. But a lot of those times an audience member in a seat just watches the film and leaves. The artist doesn’t have a real engagement with them.
Once an artist makes their film, the books close on it. The film goes to the distributor and it kind of disappears. The only engagement an artist might have with an audience would be at a high-level premier event or special screening. When I think about the Moving Image at the Walker, I’m interested in finding ways to keep the artist close to the presentation and the exhibition of their work. That’s not to say that every film we show will have an artist in attendance, but [we try] to ask that really specific question of why and how we’re showing a film and not just what film we’re showing.
We’re trying to continue the Walker’s history of investing heavily in an artist’s career by giving them opportunities to help them grow and evolve. Naming what we do as “artist-driven programming” is a way to remind ourselves of that.
JY
With all the changes to how people watch films and moving image that has happened and is still occurring, what is the role of the Walker Cinema in today’s age of streaming, when access to films has never been greater?
PO
I’ve been saying that a lot, and then I am constantly proven wrong by the fact that you can’t see everything. (laughs) But as you say, access to film is at a higher and different level than it has ever been in history. Being faced with that question was a part of how I arrived at that artist-driven kind of mentality. I began to ask: What can we do to make this event distinct? How do you make the experience of viewing a film mean something within the place and the time we’re in?
Filmmakers spend a lot of time in long, slow production models where they’re not necessarily out in the public, seeing people, or engaging with audiences in the way that a performing artist might. They usually are not going on a tour and have night after night of screenings. We’re looking to find ways for the Walker Cinema to support artists and have meaningful engagements with audiences. Giving opportunities to artists can only help to strengthen the programming that happens here and make it something that’s unique.
JY
Can you give an example of how this kind of engagement works with an artist?
PO
Absolutely. We have a summer program we’re doing with a filmmaker named Jennifer Reeder from Chicago. Jennifer is a narrative filmmaker who has made a lot of short films, but has also started to make some more feature-length films that operate very loosely in the genre category of filmmaking. They sort of touch on elements of horror and teen comedy. She’s made a number of films over the last several years that focus on high schoolers and in particular young women. We invited her to the Walker for the summer to do a five-week series in which we’ll show a feature and four short films of hers, as well as asked her to pick three films that she feels are iconic, deeply influential, or important and memorable films to her as a filmmaker.
This opened a space for the artist to present a context in which audiences can understand her work and see where she situates it in film history. Alongside her films, we’re screening two films from the 1980s: Little Darlings and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. We also are screening the 1990s film Kids by Larry Clark and written by Harmony Korine. What made this project really interesting was the discussion around what the artist’s engagement would be here at the Walker. They’re not a local filmmaker, so they can’t be here for every screening over the course of five weekends.
The obvious choice was to bring her from Chicago for the opening weekend to present her recent feature Knives and Skin. But as we talked to Jennifer about it, we said, “You’ve done that at a bunch of film festivals already. You’ve done that at a lot of places. What could you do that would be different or interesting?” And align that with the programming they were showing. We’re showing three iconic and memorable films, which all exist in memory and history in different ways. Little Darlings and Fast Times at Ridgemont High are really provocative and super engaging—in some ways, very radical films from their contemporaries at the time. We had identified Kids as being this standout film that is both monumentally important and influential, but also a severely complicated and difficult film to think of a generation later.
Through our discussions, we arrived at the idea that what would be most interesting for Jennifer and for audiences was to bring her here in connection with the screening of Kids. We would show a short film of hers called Crystal Lake, which is about a group of young women who take over a skate park. Since it has a narrative relationship to Kids, we would place those two films in conversation and have Jennifer do a dialogue with the audience after the screening. That allows us to think a little bit more about her practice through the lens of film history and where she sees her films in that history. Explore that instead of the more expected questions after the film like, “Tell me about this scene. Tell me about the budget.” Instead, we’re hosting a unique kind of experience for her as an artist and the audience that comes to explore these complex questions around teenage women and cinema.
JY
How about with local filmmakers or artists working in moving image, does the Moving Image program engage or support them as well?
PO
Absolutely! This coming fall and winter we are doing a number of engagements with an artist here in Minneapolis named Cameron Downey. When I arrived in the Twin Cities, I saw a short film by Cameron, Hymn of Dust, that just completely blew me away. We’ve invited Cameron to engage with the Walker in a number of different ways through different activities of the Moving Image program.
This begins with acquiring that work for the Walker’s Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection. Just as we collect paintings and sculptures, we also collect films and videos. Bringing Cameron’s work into the collection makes it available to audiences to see in our Bentson Mediatheque, which is the main public-facing way to encounter the work that’s in the collection.
Expanding on this is creating opportunities for Cameron as an artist to learn and understand the collection their work is entering into. This acquisition is followed by a residency in our Moving Image collection, in which Cameron will spend a few months looking at what is represented in the collection, doing some research into it, and seeing what’s there and what resonates with ideas in their own work and how they think. To help support research toward making new work. Not necessarily supporting the production of the new work, but instead giving an artist the opportunity to do that background research and think about the context in which their work exists.
It’s wanting to understand a bit more about the artist, where their work is coming from, and how that relates to being in the Walker. This is an opportunity for us to have a stronger relationship with this North Minneapolis artist. This will be accompanied by opportunities for audiences to engage in that work. The first part will be a screening with Cameron and an artist from Buffalo, New York, named Crystal Z Campbell, who makes work that is similar in its thematic interests in studying Black communities, urban decay, memory, and archives in terms of how Black populations see themselves in different cities. Crystal and Cameron will engage in an onstage dialogue about the work after the screening.
In early 2023, they will present the findings of their research through a series of online screenings they curate. The screenings would pair works from the collection with short films selected by Cameron from other artists that aren’t represented in our collection. This kind of approach is centered around how the Walker can not only archive and preserve the work of local artists, but also support the development of their practice.
JY
What is the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection?
PO
The Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection is a holding of 1,000 moving image works on 16mm and 35mm, as well as video and digital artworks. It was established in 1973 to further the appreciation and study of the art of film and serves as a basis for explorations into the history of cinema and the aesthetic and theoretical properties of the medium. It ranges from early Lumière Brothers works to Soviet cinema of the 1920s and follows through with artists of the present day. Like Cameron!
Audiences can see works from the collection through screenings in the Walker Cinema, during programs like Sound for Silents, as well as free online screens and the Bentson Mediatheque.
JY
Before visiting the Walker, I had never encountered something like the Bentson Mediatheque. Can you explain what it is for those who haven’t experienced it yet?
PO
The Bentson Mediatheque is a very unique feature at the Walker. It’s one of those if-you-know, you-know kind of places. (laughs) Imagine your own private screening room with 60 seats where you can watch hundreds of films for free. Anyone can come in and choose what they want to watch from the collection using a touchscreen. You can scroll through the full list or search by filmmakers, titles, or other subjects. You can also select playlists that we organize on a rotating basis.
One of the unique and interesting things about having a film and video collection is that you can have a lot of work in one very specific space rather than needing lots of wall space to hang paintings or put other work on. The Bentson Mediatheque lets anyone come into the Walker, hang out, and watch movies anytime the Walker is open for free. Classes and other groups can reserve the Bentson Mediatheque as well.
JY
Do you have any future predictions for where the cinema landscape is heading?
PO
We live in a really weird moment in time. That’s partly because of all the changes to how films are seen. Some films are released to theaters, and others are only streaming, with the reasons for why a film gets one kind of release over the other often opaque.
Perhaps right now we are not experiencing something completely new. Instead, it is a slow evolution. During the video-store era, there were films that you’d see at the mall or at the movie theater, and others that only came out straight to video. Maybe there is a little bit too much nostalgia for the video store, where you could scan the physical shelves and find something random, discover something that you weren’t looking for. You could stumble across weird video box art and watch a film that you knew nothing about.
That can still happen today. You can still go to a movie theater or a cinema and not watch the trailer on YouTube beforehand. You can stumble across a film you’ve never heard of, on one of the many, many platforms for watching cinema available now. We have a proliferation of platforms that contain libraries of historic cinema as well as what’s happening in contemporary practice. Before, if you lived in San Francisco, New York, or Chicago, you might be able to see lots of kinds of films. But if you lived in Des Moines, you wouldn’t necessarily have access.
That accessibility of seeing films today is really interesting. There exists a real opportunity for so many films to be seen. In decades past, the only way a film could be seen was by sending large metal cans of film prints around the country and world. It was hard to see a lot of films. Today there is less of a geographic barrier around how and where one can see films that aren’t playing at the mall.
I don't know where this all goes in the future, but it feels like it should lead to something good.▪︎

Stay up to date with the Walker's Moving Image programs at walkerart.org/cinema