The Little Theatre
The Injured Body
EVENT @ THE LITTLE

The Injured Body:
A Film About Racism in America

Premiere & Post-Screening Discussion

Saturday, May 30, 2026 | 11:30am

Little Theatre 1 (240 East Ave.)
Doors open at 11:00am

Buy Tickets

$23 Public | $20 Seniors & Students with ID
Tickets available online in advance, at our box office during open hours, or at the door (if tickets remain).

Featuring a post-film panel discussion between Dr. Kathryn Mariner and director Mara Ahmed. | Eight years in the making, The Injured Body finally arrives on screen. Shot and post-produced in Rochester, it weaves together the voices of 16 women rooted in local communities and the work of 10 dance artists and choreographers to create a powerful human story. Don’t miss its Rochester debut at The Little Theatre!

The Injured Body is a film about racism, resilience, and radical imagination.

It asks the question: how do we carry the weight of racism in our bodies, what does it mean for our mental and physical health, and how can we begin to heal?

It’s a visually striking and emotionally resonant documentary that delves into the everyday realities of racial microaggressions through candid conversations with 16 women of color. Inspired by Claudia Rankine’s groundbreaking book Citizen: An American Lyric, the film explores the complex intersections of race, gender, and identity in today’s America.

Shot across the changing seasons of Upstate New York by Rajesh Barnabas, The Injured Body features mesmerizing dance sequences primarily choreographed by Mariko Yamada. From vibrant costumes to a dynamic musical score, every element of the film invites the viewer into a rich sensory experience.

The Injured Body is a call to imagine a world beyond racist violence and to believe in the possibility of collective healing.

Join us for this much awaited film premiere followed by a thought-provoking discussion.

This project is partly funded by a grant from the Josephine and Paul Wenger Fund for Peace Through International Understanding (First Unitarian Church of Rochester) and fiscally sponsored by New York Women in Film & Television.

This event is run and organized by a third party, taking place at The Little. The Little is the venue, but not the organizer or programmer, for this event. Please note that Little Theatre discounts, passes, and member benefits do not apply.

Meet the Panelists

Mara Ahmed (Director)
Best known for her non-linear multimedia work, filmmaker Mara Ahmed produces documentaries, soundscapes, and artwork that trespass political borders and challenge colonial logics. Mara was born in Lahore and educated in Belgium, Pakistan, and the US. Her art practice reflects these displacements and multiplicities. She has directed and produced 5 films, including The Muslims I Know (2008), Pakistan One on One (2011), A Thin Wall (2015), and Return to Sender (2023) which was funded by a NYSCA grant. Her films have been broadcast on PBS and screened at international film festivals. Her websites are NeelumFilms.com and MaraAhmedStudio.com

Dr. Kathryn Mariner (Discussant)
Professor Mariner’s research examines the relationship between social inequality and intimacy in the United States. As a cultural anthropologist additionally trained and licensed in clinical social work, she investigates how historical and contemporary structures of power, such as race and racism, shape how people construct notions of family and community in their everyday lives.
 
Her first book, Contingent Kinship (University of California Press, 2019), is based on research at a private adoption agency specializing in the transracial placement of Black and biracial children in Chicago. In developing the theoretical concept of “intimate speculation,” the book explores the speculative logics of domestic transracial adoption, by attending to how raced and classed exchanges of power, money, and knowledge produce notions of the Black child as a highly contingent imagined future. The conditions of possibility for this adoptive future often include historical legacies of dispossession and the devaluation of Black motherhood. Witnessing this process unfold within Chicago’s landscape of stark race and class segregation has informed Professor Mariner’s current interest in the relationship between social inequality and physical space.
 
Professor Mariner’s current research project, fertileground, investigates the relationship between race and placemaking in Rochester, New York. In order to understand how individuals from marginalized groups build physical spaces of community within the context of hypersegregation, the project utilizes community-based and participatory approaches to fieldwork, and employs the methods of observant participation, interviews, mapping, photography, and artistic production to capture the many ways residents are creating and sustaining lifeworlds in a city sometimes described as “dying,” and where certain racialized spaces in particular have been problematically termed “fatal.” This project sprouts from three existing intellectual traditions: theories of space and place, urban ethnography and history, and feminist and Black geographies. Learn more about the project at fertilegroundroc.org.