Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 7:30pm
Curse and Blessing (Film and Filing Cabinet)
Presented by Jem Cohen
“Everything is included in the new conception of the newsreel. Into the jumble of life resolutely enter.”
- Dziga Vertov, "Kinoks, a Revolution"
“...to that factory of film footage in which life, passing through the camera lens, does not vanish forever, leaving no trace, but does, on the contrary, leave a trace, precise and inimitable.”
- Dziga Vertov, "On Kinopravda"
“Not a film, but a filing cabinet.”
- Dziga Vertov, the Diaries
In my closets, cabinets, and storage rooms there are stacks of films. Some eventually become parts of finished projects, some were shown here and there in live music collaborations, some never make it beyond the apartment wall. An informal evening of mostly 16mm rarities and sketches; a few things never previously projected and at least one never previously seen, the journey more than the destination. - JC
Subjects likely to include the following:
The Federal Prison on 2nd Ave. Brooklyn (just a few blocks from Light Industry).
The Eldridge Street Synagogue in disarray.
Steel factory madness in the North of Spain.
Italian Anatomy museum.
Springtime in Gowanus.
Also featuring live musical accompaniment by T. Griffin and Catherine McRae.
Followed by a conversation between Cohen and Michael Almereyda.
Brooklyn-based Cohen has made over 35 films built from his own ongoing archive of street footage, portraits, and sound. His feature, CHAIN, premiered at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival and in New York at the Museum of Modern Art and received an Independent Spirit Award. Most recently, Cohen collaborated with Patti Smith on a series of short films and installations at Fondation Cartier in Paris and directed a program of film with live music, Evening's Civil Twilight in Empires of Tin (with Vic Chesnutt, members of Silver Mount Zion, Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto, T. Griffin and Catherine McRae). It will be released on dvd by Constellation Records.
Cohen’s other projects include: Benjamin Smoke, (co-directed with Peter Sillen), Instrument (Fugazi) and Lost Book Found. He has worked extensively with musicians, including Godspeed You Black Emperor!, the Ex, Terry Riley, Elliott Smith, Sparklehorse, R.E.M., Blonde Redhead, Stephen Vitiello, and the Orpheus Orchestra with Gil Shaham.
Cohen’s works have been broadcast by the BBC, PBS, ARTE, and the Sundance Channel, and are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney, and Melbourne’s Screen Gallery.
Tickets - $7, available at door.