In Bloom + A Conversation with Rohan Kalyan

In this episode, we're talking about June's series of films, In Bloom, a series of films from around the world that I want us to use to reframe and explore the complexities of the coming-of-age experience. The series explores the transformative power of these periods in our lives to uncover narrative, visual, and sonic connections that run through each of them. We're often told that coming of age is linear, a private journey of heartbreak, embarrassment, and eventual clarity. But what if it isn't? What if growing up feels like dislocation, like trying to arrive in a place that isn't ready for you?These five films—The Spirit of the Beehive, Peppermint Soda, Alma's Rainbow, Moving, and Return to Seoul— grapple with those questions. They offer comfort, sure, but also ask harder things: about identity, alienation, and what it means to grow up when the systems around us fail.To help us parse through these complex ideas and questions, I had a conversation with Rohan Kalyan, political ethnographer, filmmaker, and Associate Professor and Acting Director of the School of World Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University