The Machine That Kills Bad People: Notes from a Film Club

The Machine That Kills Bad People: Notes from a Film Club Edited by Erika Balsom, Beatrice Gibson, María Palacios Cruz and Ben Rivers The Visible Press, June 2026 The Machine That Kills Bad People is an engaging and expansive collection of thirty-nine essays commissioned by the bi-monthly screening series at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, programmed by Erika Balsom, Beatrice Gibson, María Palacios Cruz and Ben Rivers from 2018 to 2026. The Machine That Kills Bad People is, of course, the cinema itself – a medium that is so often and so visibly in service of a crushing status quo but which, in the right hands, is a fatal instrument of beauty, contestation, wonder, politics, poetry, new visions, testimonies, histories, dreams. It is also a film club devoted to showing work – ‘mainstream’ and experimental, known and unknown, historical and contemporary – that takes up this task. The film club’s otherwise promiscuous programming was governed by a single rule that has remained undisclosed until now: only female filmmakers would be shown. As a result, this book offers an idiosyncratic journey through more than a century of women’s cinema, imagining new historical narratives and compelling its readers to question the status quo. Steven Cairns – Foreword Editor’s Notes Elena Gorfinkel – Wanda, Loden, Lodestone May Adadol Ingawanij – Follow the Sparrows: Anocha Suwichakornpong’s Mundane History Leo Goldsmith – Flightpaths: Mati Diop’s Big in Vietnam Laura Staab – Writing in Snow Genevieve Yue – Movie Crush: Chick Strand’s Cartoon Le Mousse Lucy Reynolds – “Being useful is a form of willing slavery …” Ara Osterweil – Martina’s Playhouse and the Queer Space of Girlhood Erika Balsom – Atlases of America: Babette Mangolte’s The Sky on Location and Deborah Stratman’s O’er the Land Sara Saljoughi – You, Name a Few Beautiful Things: Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black Daniella Shreir – Negotiating Intimacy on the Los Angeles Bus Network: Alexandra Cuesta’s Piensa en mí Kit Duckworth – A Room of Their Own: Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends Tendai Mutambu – A Stir in the Crucible: Alanis Obomsawin’s Incident at Restigouche Andréa Picard – Everyday Epiphanies: Alice Rohrwacher’s Corpo celeste Xiaolu Guo – Nudity is the Absence of the Hidden: On Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Reassemblage Eileen Myles – Women Screaming George Clark – Casual Encounters: The Untroubled Mind and Nervous Translation Janique Vigier – Looking Back Teresa Castro – Streams of Forgetfulness: On Manuela Serra’s The Movement of Things Alice Blackhurst – Open Locks, Whoever Knocks! On Nina Menkes’s The Bloody Child Juliet Jacques – Inventing the Future: On My Twentieth Century by Ildikó Enyedi Corina Copp – Sparkle of The Outside Laura Guy – Barbara Hammer’s Hard Work Rebecca Jane Arthur – The Need for Roots: On Ruth Beckermann’s Paper Bridge Amina Cain – All Desire Wants Eternity Ricardo Matos Cabo – Ode to Mount Hayachine Beatrice Loayza – I Like to Watch: The Helicopter Dreams of Kathryn Bigelow and Deborah Stratman Sophie Robinson – This Black Hole’s Dark Heart Laura Mulvey – Some Thoughts on Ida Lupino’s Outrage Huda Awan – Violent Boredom Chloe Aridjis – Cat – Reverie – Shadows – Reflections – Puppets – Agency –Handbag – Pendulum – Silence CAConrad – Films for Light Siavash Minoukadeh – Going Off Leash Vanessa Onwuemezi – Is it Better to Be than to Obey? Hannah Bonner – At Arm’s Length Sophia Satchell-Baeza – On Verticality in Falling Lessons Devika Girish – Dream Machine Caitlin Quinlan – “Absently enchantedly Destined to splice it together” Chris McCormack – Digressions on Hell Erika Balsom, Beatrice Gibson, María Palacios Cruz, Ben Rivers – Blind Spots, or, the The Visible Press, 2026 Softcover, 255pp.…