Deb Tolchinsky will present her New York Times Op-Doc, “Contaminated Memories,” and an episode of her related in-process series, “True Memories and Other Falsehoods.”
A woman misidentifies her assailant, an innocent man believes he murdered his parents, and an all-white jury convicts a black man of armed robbery. Tolchinsky’s current work investigates false memory, false belief, and faulty police procedures, and asks if an understanding of cognitive science can reduce wrongful convictions.
The screening will be approximately 45 minutes followed by a conversation between Tolchinsky and Professor Josh Malitsky, director of the Center of Documentary Research and Practice. Please join us.
Note: Content includes sexual assault and homicide.
Debra Tolchinsky is a documentary director/producer, a multimedia artist, a curator, and an associate professor at Northwestern University. Debra was the founding director of Northwestern’s MFA in documentary media and served as the Department of Radio-TV-Film’s associate chair. She received an AB from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and an MFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her films (“Saint Catherine’s Wedding Ring,” “Lucky,” “Dolly,” “Fast Talk”) have been screened nationally and internationally at venues such as the Sundance Film Festival, The John F. Kennedy Center, The Chicago International Film Festival, FIPADOC, The Italy Innocence Project, and the Supreme Court Institute and in 2019, The New York Times released her short documentary, “Contaminated Memories,” via Op-Docs. Tolchinsky is working on a four-part episodic documentary, “True Memories and Other Falsehoods.”
