Feature Screening: Ken Jacobs – From Orchard Street to The Museum of Modern Art Directed by Fred Riedel (2023, 98 Min.)

One of the most extraordinary personalities in the history of moving images, native New Yorker Ken Jacobs (b.1933), and his wife/creative partner Flo Jacobs, sit down for a series of discussions, reflecting on numerous excerpts from the many films and performances conjured onto screens since 1955, through to 2023 when The Museum of Modern Art in NY acquired his entire life’s work. From the street films and antic collaborations with Jack Smith and company as a central artist in the 1960s underground film movement, through later, seminal, ground-breaking formalist works which expanded his recognition by MoMA and other major cultural institutions, to his invention of the Nervous System and the Cyclopean 3D patented Eternalisms and remarkable musical collaborations (with JG Thirlwell, Aki Onda, Nisi Jacobs, Michael Schumacher and others) of his recent work, Jacobs demonstrates and articulates his endless fascination and pursuit of exceptional, moving image art.

Fred Riedel Biography

FRED RIEDEL has produced and directed films, videos and TV programs with Jem Cohen, Jeff Preiss, Keith Griffiths, Simon Field, Lee Ranaldo, Ravi Coltrane, Marc Maron and Charles Busch. His work includes documentaries on the creative process about Sonic Youth member Lee Ranaldo, late collage artist Michael Anderson, and experimental filmmaking legend Ken Jacobs, which premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. Fred has also produced documentaries for HBO, BBC, CH. 4, etc. Fred was nominated for a NY Emmy for “Bruce Davidson — Making Contact” for WNET which he produced and directed. He received an NEA award for “Late City Final: Motion Pictures from the End of Times Square.” Fred received the award for Best Director at the Gig Harbor Film Festival. In addition, he has produced and/or directed music videos for Lee Ranaldo, Miracle Legion, and Rubin Kodheli.

Ken Jacobs Biography

Distinguished Professor Emeritus, KEN JACOBS, was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1933. He studied painting with one of the prime creators of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hofmann, in the mid-fifties. It was then that he also began filmmaking (Star Spangled To Death). His personal star rose, to just about knee high, with the sixties advent of Underground Film. In 1967, with the involvement of his wife Florence and many others aspiring to a democratic -rather than demagogic- cinema, he created The Millennium Film Workshop in New York City. A nonprofit filmmaker’s co-operative open to all, it made available film equipment, workspace, screenings and classes at little or no cost. Later he found himself teaching large classes of painfully docile students at St. John’s University in Jamaica, Queens.

In 1969, after a week’s guest seminar at Harpur College (now, Binghamton University), students petitioned the Administration to hire Ken Jacobs. Despite his lack of a high school diploma, the Administration -during that special period of anguish and possibility- decided that, as a teacher, he was “a natural.” Together with Larry Gottheim he organized the SUNY system’s first Department of Cinema, teaching thoughtful consideration of every kind of film but specializing in avant garde cinema appreciation and production. (Department graduates are world-recognized as having an exceptional presence in this field.) His own early studies under Hofmann would increasingly figure in his filmwork, making for an Abstract Expressionist cinema, clearly evident in his avant garde classic Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son (1969) and increasingly so in his subsequent devising of the unique Nervous System series of live film-projection performances. The American Museum Of The Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, hosted a full retrospective of his work in 1989, The New York Museum Of Modern Art held a partial retrospective in 1996, as did The American House in Paris in 1994 and the Arsenal Theater in Berlin in 1986 (during his 6 month stay as guest-recipient of Berlin’s DAAD award). He has also performed in Japan, at the Louvre in Paris, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, etc. Honors include the Maya Deren Award of The American Film Institute, the Guggenheim Award and a special Rockefeller Foundation grant. A 1999 interview with Ken Jacobs can be seen on the Net as part of The University Of California at Berkeley’s series of Conversations With History.

HANADI ELYAN is a transnational filmmaker driven by a lifelong passion for storytelling. Her work sheds light on social issues affecting marginalized communities, offering a unique female perspective. Through her films, she breaks stereotypes and highlights the shared human experience.

Hanadi’s films have garnered international recognition, competing in prestigious festivals and earning coverage from top publications like The Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera, and the BBC. Her latest film, Salma’s Home, won Best Feature Film: Global Vision at Cinequest Film Festival 2022 and the Audience Award at Austin Film Festival 2022. It also ranked among Netflix’s top ten streamed films in Jordan for four weeks.

Born in Dubai to an artistic Jordanian-Palestinian family, Hanadi, daughter of renowned Palestinian artist Nasr Abdel Aziz, spent her childhood between the UAE and Jordan. She was exposed to diverse cultural influences, fostering her creative vision. Hanadi founded Reel Arab Productions in Dubai, producing commercials for global brands and TV content for the largest Arab broadcaster.

After receiving a full scholarship, Hanadi earned her MFA in Film Production and Directing from UCLA. Now based in Boston, MA, she serves as Graduate Program Director of the Film and Media Arts MFA Program, and Assistant Professor of Narrative Film Directing at Emerson College.

THE BOSTON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL (BPFF) brings Palestine-related cinema, narratives, and culture to New England audiences.

The festival features compelling and thought-provoking films, including documentaries, features, rare early works, video art pieces, and new films by emerging artists and youth. These works from directors around the world offer refreshingly honest, self-described, and independent views of Palestine and its history, culture, and geographically dispersed society. Each year, guest filmmakers from various countries and expert commentators add contextual depth to the films.

BPFF also offers ancillary cultural programming including concerts by Palestinian musicians and art exhibits by or about Palestinians. This initiative is an ongoing program of smaller cultural events, talks, and screenings held throughout the year. In this way, the festival seeks to engage local audiences and sustain Palestinian arts and culture in the city throughout the year, in addition to collaborating with other such festivals in the US and worldwide.

Born in Chicago on May 16, 1943, JON JOST is a self-taught filmmaker whose career spans over six decades. Expelled from college in 1962 due to his political activism, Jost began making films in 1963. His work is characterized by a unique experimental style, with over 46 feature-length films and more than 50 short works to his name. Jost’s films, often centered on American social and political issues, range from essay films (Speaking Directly) to fiction (Last Chants for a Slow Dance) and hybrids such as Angel City. His cinematic approach is deeply influenced by his political convictions and desire to challenge traditional film narratives.

Jost’s work has been showcased in major museums and film festivals around the world, with retrospectives at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Viennale. He has received numerous accolades, including the Caligari Film Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and the Los Angeles Critics Award for All the Vermeers in New York (1991). In recognition of his contributions to independent cinema, Jost was honored with the John Cassavetes Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991 and the Maverick Spirit Award in 2000.

KATHRYN RAMEY is a filmmaker and anthropologist whose work operates at the intersection of experimental film processes and ethnographic research.  Her award winning and strongly personal films are characterized by manipulation of the celluloid including hand-processing, optical printing, and various direct animation techniques. Most recently she has been focused on creating an anti-colonial film practice with collaborators in Puerto Rico and researching environmentally friendly photochemical processes utilizing indigenous flora. She is deeply committed to sharing her knowledge of alternative analogue technologies through workshops and publications.  

Ramey’s scholarly interest is focused on the social history of the Avant-Garde film community, the anthropology of visual communication and the intersection between avant-garde and ethnographic film and art practices. Her book Experimental Filmmaking: BREAK THE MACHINE (Focal Press 2016) is a thinly veiled experimental ethnography on the contemporary experimental film scene masquerading as a textbook on experimental film techniques written in the freehand voice of a zine.

PRABHASH CHANDRA Born and raised in Bihar, India, Prabhash Chandra is the artistic director of Alpana Theatre. He holds a postgraduate from the Department of Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Delhi. Over the past decade, he has directed, adapted and acted in numerous plays. Currently, he is a visiting faculty member at the University of Delhi. He directed the critically acclaimed  documentary, ‘Mera Ram Kho Gaya’ (2019). I’m Not The River Jhelum (Be Ches Ne Veth) is his first feature fiction film.

DATE & TIME: 5PM  9-25-24

PROGRAM:

I’M NOT THE RIVER JHELUM

The film shows glimpses of the life of its young protagonist Afeefa living in Kashmir. On the one hand, the film explores the suffocation and trauma experienced by Afeefa in her personal life and, on the other hand, the film evokes the atmosphere of perpetual uncertainty and violence in the milieu. In following the life of Afeefa, the film traces her growing understanding of the forces at play in Kashmir, India.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

For over many decades, life in Kashmir has been filled with uncertainty and violence. The worst sufferers in this situation are children and women in the sense that the basic human rights to freedom and education are denied to them. From what I gathered from my visits to Kashmir and in my interactions with the people, I felt a great many views exist, in conflict with each other within Kashmir as well as outside – in ‘mainland’ India. I felt that there is a huge gap between the perception and the ground reality of Kashmir. It has been a challenge for me to comprehend the complex universe of Kashmir and to attempt to evoke this in my first feature film.

UTE AURAND was born in 1957 in Frankfurt/Main, and grew up in Berlin. She is a teacher and curator, and a devoted 16mm filmmaker since 1980. She studied filmmaking at the Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb) during the years 1979-1985. In 1985, she began to produce her own films. In 1987 she founded “Ute Aurand Filmproduktion.” From 1990-95, Aurand presented the series “Filmarbeiterinnen-Abend” at the Arsenal Cinema, Berlin, featuring films made by women, mostly experimental. Beginning in 1981, Aurand curated film programs e.g. “Lichtgedichte/Light Poems”, “Hyacinths” and “Poetinnen mit der Kamera/Women Poets with the Camera” and monographic programs of films by Marie Menken, Margaret Tait and Utako Koguchi. In 1991, she worked on the research project and book Frauen machen Geschichte – 25 Jahre Studentinnen an der dffb (Women make History-25 Years of Women Students at the dffb), with Maria Lang.

This program included Sakura, Sakura (2015, 2.5min, 16mm, color, optical sound), LISA (2017, 4.5min, 16mm), and Rasendes Grün mit Pferden (Rushing Green with Horses, 2019, Reel #2, 42 min, 16 mm, optical sound).

ROY GRUNDMANN Before earning his graduate degrees in the United States, Roy Grundmann studied film and literature in Germany and England. Focusing on film in its modernist and postmodernist context, he publishes on American and European narrative cinema, international avant-garde film, film theory and cultural theory, and gay and lesbian film history and queer theory. He is the author of Andy Warhol’s Blow Job (Temple University Press), the editor of A Companion to Michael Haneke (Wiley-Blackwell), and a co-editor of the four-volume The Wiley-Blackwell History of American Film. Grundmann is the curator of several landmark film series, including the first comprehensive retrospective of the films of Michael Haneke. Grundmann’s publications have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He is a contributing editor of Cineaste magazine.

EPHRAIM ASILIis an African American artist and educator whose work focuses on the African diaspora as a cultural force. Asili’s films have screened in festivals and venues all over the world, including the New York Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, The Berlinale, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Asili’s 2020 feature debut The Inheritance premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, and was recently the focus of an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art where it is a part of their permanent collection. In 2021 Asili was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. During the summer of 2022 Asili directed a short film Strange Math, along with the 2023 Men’s Spring/Summer fashion show for Louis Vuitton. In 2023 Asili was the recipient of a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship, and in 2024 Asili was awarded a grant from Creative Capital. Asili is currently the Director of the Film & Electronic Arts at Bard College where he is also an Associate Professor of film production and film studies.

MassArt Ciné Culture is proud to welcome Wicked Queer 40 THREADS PROGRAM of Queer Experimental Shorts to Ciné Culture. Founded in 1984 by film programmer George Mansour, Wicked Queer is the 4th longest running LGBTQ+ Film Festival in North America. We are proud to be an all-volunteer organization. Our mission is to build community and to celebrate Queer storytelling and filmmaking through the uplifting of voices and stories not yet heard and to present and preserve the vibrancy of our histories.

Shawn Cotter (they/he) | EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Since coming on board to the film festival in 2011, Shawn has had many roles in the operations of Wicked Queer. They started as a location manager and then served as Operations Manager and Director of Programming before taking their most recent position as Executive Director. They are an experimental handmade filmmaker whose Super 8mm films have shown internationally. Shawn currently lives in Malden, MA, with their three cats and counts among their favorite filmmakers Joe Gage, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, RW Fassbinder, Douglas Sirk, Kenneth Anger, Wong Kar-wai, Jess Franco and Dario Argento. Their favorite LGBTQ+ movie is FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES.

THREADS: A Program of Experimental Shorts

MassArt Ciné Culture Screening Series, in partnership with the Roxbury Film Festival, will present a weekend film screening series of work by two acclaimed directors: Charles Burnett and Zeinabu Davis. Both Burnett and Davis are integral figures from the first generation of the L.A. Rebellion film movement, a group of African-American filmmakers who studied at the UCLA film school in the 1960s-1980s. 

FEATURED FILMS:

• Spirits of Rebellion: Black Cinema at UCLA by Zeinabu Davis (2016) 
• Program of Short Films by Zeinabu Davis: Cycles (1989), Mother of the River (1995), Crocodile Conspiracy (1986)
• My Brother’s Wedding by Charles Burnett (1983) 
• Killer of Sheep by Charles Burnett (1978) 

Over her three-decade career, ERICKA BECKMAN’s playful yet formally demanding films challenge traditional aesthetic, and cultural values, that mix games with fairytales to create hybrids with new rules. Beckman uses play in every sense to shape her message. Beckman’s work has been shown at festivals, museums, and galleries around the world. Her one-woman shows include: Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, Le Magasin, Grenoble, France, the Tate Modern, London, MOCA, Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, Washington,D.C., and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. She has been in four Biennials at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her works are in the film collection of the Whitney Museum, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, The Walker Art Center, Anthology Film Archives, plus the British Film Institute, and the Zabludowicz Collection. Amongst the numerous awards received for her work are: Two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York State Council on the Arts grants, one from Massachusetts Council on the Arts, and a residency from the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France.

SU FRIEDRICH is an American avant-garde film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She has been a leading figure in avant-garde filmmaking and a pivotal force in the establishment of Queer Cinema. Su has made twenty-four films and videos which range in length from 2 to 113 minutes. The films have been featured in twenty-six retrospectives at museums and film festivals and have been widely screened, extensively written about, are in many university and museum collections, and have won numerous grants and awards.

In 2015, Sink or Swim was one of the 25 films chosen by the Library of Congress to be included in the National Film Registry. Her DVD collection is distributed by Outcast Films and her two most recent films are distributed by Icarus Films. She has taught at The New School and NYU, and since 1998, Friedrich has been Professor of Visual Art in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.