“On Friday, February 13th, we will celebrate 65 years of The Film-Makers’ Cooperative at Judson Memorial Church and honor Nan Goldin, Joan Jonas, Lynne Sachs, MM Serra, John Waters, and the Jack Smith Archive at Gladstone Gallery.
Our 65th anniversary gala will provide vital support for the Coop’s mission to foster artistic freedom and distribute bold experimental and independent cinema. Join us for a lively cocktail reception with food, drinks, live performances, special screenings, an art auction, and more!
Capacity is limited. For more information, naming opportunities, and other ways to get involved, please email: filmcoopgala@gmail.com.
Can’t attend but still want to support the Coop in 2026? Please consider giving the gift of a tax deductible donation here: film-makerscoop.com/support/.
*Note: John Waters will be accepting his award remotely.“
Lynne and Diane Sachs
Mary Filippo, Kathryn Ramey, Michelle Handleman, MM Serra, Erica Schreiner, Lynne
Mark Street and Maya Sachs-Street
Diane Sachs
Noa Street-Sachs
Judson Memorial Church
Tabitha Jackson, Jesse Berliner-Sachs, Karen Harber, Felix Torres, & others…
If you hand a business card to filmmaker Lynne Sachs, don’t be surprised if she holds onto it – for a very long time.
Over the course of several decades, Sachs has collected an enormous stack of them, numbering around 600. For her new documentary Every Contact Leaves a Trace, she decided to try to reconnect with some of the people whose identities are, in some sense, inscribed in those 2” x 3” cards. It’s a launching point to ponder the traces that are left behind when we interact with others – the residue, sometimes physical, often intangible.
Sachs’ documentary premiered in the Signed section of the recently concluded International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast met up with Sachs at the festival to discuss her film and the people with whom she reconnected, including a therapist, a hairdresser and a Syrian immigrant, among others. She tells us how the work of pioneering French criminologist and forensic scientist Edmond Locard inspired her cinematic exploration. And she explains why an interaction at IDFA that involved the new way of exchanging contacts – by bumping phones – left her feeling slightly unnerved.
At IDFA, we also speak with the award-winning Russian-born documentary filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky, who came to the festival to premiere his film Trillion. It’s perhaps one of the most mysterious documentaries ever made – shot in black and white and without dialogue. In gripping fashion, it follows the movements of “a woman [who] walks barefoot over a rocky outcrop, somewhere by the sea,” as the IDFA catalog puts it. She totes a burlap sack, reaching into it to cast a shimmering material across a stony peninsula. Kossakovsky tells us how the mystery woman became the center of the second in his projected “Empathy” trilogy (the first in the series was the Oscar-shortlisted Gunda).
Gunda, a film about the titular pig, as well as a one-legged chicken and other barnyard creatures, sprang from the director’s respect for sentient creatures – a moral position that made him a vegan from the age of about 5. Kossakovsky tells us about the experience he went through as a young boy that convinced him never to eat meat.
That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk hosted by Oscar winner Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley), and Carey, Deadline’s senior documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios. Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
The Accident That Pricks Hunter Integrated Media Arts Fall 2025 Course IMA78378 Room: HN 544 1 Credit Course
Sunday October 19th from 10am-1pm on zoom Saturday November 1st from 10am-6pm in person Wednesday November 5th from 5:30pm-9pm in person (public event)
Lynne Sachs
The Accident that Pricks: Family and Photography is a course in which we will explore the ways in which images of our mother, father, sister, brother, cousin, grand-parent, aunt or uncle might become material for the making of a personal film. Each participant will come to the first day with a single photograph they want to examine. You will then create a cinematic presence for this image by incorporating storytelling and performance. In the process, we will discuss and challenge notions of truth-telling and language. This course is inspired by French theorist Roland Barthes’ theory of the punctum, the intensely subjective effect of a photograph, and Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg’s writing on her family living under Fascism during World War II. Ginzburg was a prescient artist who enjoyed mixing up conventional distinctions between fiction and non-fiction: “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt compelled at once to destroy it. The places, events, and people are all real.”
Reading:
John Ashberry, “Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror” poem Roland Barthes, Camara Lucida (selections) Tina Campt, Listening to Images, Introduction and Chapter 1. Natalia Ginzburg, Family Lexicon, pp 5_35 Clarice Lispector, “Mystery of Sao Cristovao” from Family Ties
“Mark and I were asked by the New York Public Library Reserve Film Collection to speak about why the films they own and exhibit means so much to us and the world.”
A film about traces, guilt and memory — and about the impossibility of approaching the past arbitrarily.
In “Every Contact Leaves a Trace,” experimental filmmaker Lynne Sachs starts from a seemingly simple idea: she’s spent her life collecting business cards from people she’s encountered along the way—colleagues, festival directors, strangers who popped into her life briefly. Most have long since vanished. What remains is a box full of names, numbers, and faded impressions. Sachs decides to reconnect with some of them, camera in hand, while her children ask her questions about who these people were—and why them in particular.
The premise is intriguing: a film about the traces left by encounters. Yet, Sachs doesn’t allow for chance. She chooses the people she remembers well, those with whom the connection was once tangible. This keeps the adventure within safe boundaries; the possibility that the unknown might truly surprise her remains unexploited.
Yet, despite her limited abilities, Sachs manages to keep the film alive until the very end. Ultimately, ‘Every Contact Leaves a Trace’ isn’t just about the people behind the tickets; it gradually unfolds into a film about the past, atonement, and guilt. She visits Angela, a former German festival director, who, using Heinrich Heine’s poem “Die arme Weber” (The Poor Weber), speaks about the legacy of guilt that weighs on Germany. Sachs accompanies her narrative with daring poetic imagery—close-ups on 8mm and digital—supported by Stephen Vitiello’s pulsating score. What could have been a simple interview elevates into an essayistic pamphlet on memory and responsibility.
At times, however, Sachs goes too far. In her search for form, she veers toward abstraction: audio fragments and fragmented sentences tumble over each other like a maelstrom of thoughts. In these moments, the film threatens to descend into artistic introspection—art for art’s sake—and the lighthearted curiosity that usually characterizes her work vanishes. Fortunately, she always regains her balance.
One of the most intriguing encounters is with avant-garde filmmaker Lawrence Brose, whose work on Oscar Wilde is visually captivating, but whose personal history remains fraught: he was once convicted of possessing child pornography, a charge he claims had nothing to do with his artistic practice. The film touches on moral ambiguity here without resorting to sensationalism—and it is precisely there that Sachs reveals her strength: behind every card lies a person who, as soon as the camera focuses on him and thus magnifies him, proves to be extraordinary.
What remains is a film that tells as much about Sachs herself as it does about the people she visits. Her gaze, her voice, her editing—that’s what makes “Every Contact Leaves a Trace” tick. She captures beauty in the mundane, elevates the casual to poetry, and shows that even the most fleeting encounter leaves a lasting legacy.
The Film-Makers’ Cooperative and Canyon Cinema joined forces in 2025 to support Fall of Freedom, an urgent nationwide arts movement united in defiance of the rise of authoritarianism. We sent out a call for 10-second films. Over 100 artists sent us their work.
Featured filmmakers:
Tommy Becker Anne Colvin Clair Bain Julie Halazy Toby Kaufmann-Buhler Abigail Child Joe Miller Auguste Bartninkaite Thomas Dimopoulos Rudy Gerson Chihiro Ito Sean Paul Amal Alshoura Andrew Tamburrino The Davis (CA) Visibility Brigade Césaire José Carroll-Domínguez Bill Baldewicz Craig Baldwin Leonard Henny (courtesy Eye Filmmuseum) Max Wolf Horatio Perry Katherine Bauer Jan Adamove Dana Teen Lomax Jamie Naqvi Charles de Agustin Alexis Krasilovsky Diganto Mori Lucien Pin J Woltz Tommaso Paris Robert Schneider Jeffrey Skoller Ausín Sáinz Roland Cartagena Noel Molloy Chris Nyklewicz Miguel Chichorro Ellie Vanderlip Dominic Angerame Brigitte Valobra Wald Randolph Bird ALice Leonardo Tara Lamorgese Madeline Florio MM Serra Wenwen Zhu Karen Bosy Pauline Mateos Andrew Reichel Zazie Kanwar-Torge ALina Taalman Lillian Canright Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock Jem Cohen Susan Kouguell Evgeny Kondrov Arisha Chowdhury Tony Merritt Aiden Castillo Lynne Sachs Samuel Rivera Cortes Evan Bode Hogan Seidel Kathleen Quillian Juyi Mao Billie Sorribès Joel Singer Mark Street Leonardo Severino Rankin Renwick Candy Powell Erica Schreiner Ate Von Hes Vahid Valikani Anne Senstad Conor Williams Phil Weisman Roman Ženatý James Hollenbaugh Gloria Chung Lawrence Jordan Liam Kenny Julius Klein Koomah Callon Murphy Ruth Hayes Ira Vicari James Sansing Thad Povey Michelle Rauch Yann les Jours Spyrous Patsouras Kevin Roy and Tim Mustoe Zhang Yida Walter K. Lew and Alissa Xhixhabesi Janis Crystal Lipzin William Brown and Mila Zuo Tushar GIdwani Keum-Taek Jung Annie Robertson Caroline Savage Jim Hubbard Mary Filippo Tyler Turkle Brian Padian Nechama Winston Robert Joshua San Luis Fred Camper Adam E. Stone Matt McKinzie Tav Falco Anthony Tko Rrose PResent rylik zzoo Maxmilien Luc Proctor Vanja Mervič Christophe Charre
Organized by Brett Kashmere (Canyon Cinema), Matt McKinzie (The Film-Makers’ Cooperative), and Lynne Sachs. Edited by Mary Rose McClain.
For more information visit: CANYON CINEMA: canyoncinema.com THE FILM-MAKERS’ COOPERATIVE: film-makerscoop.com FALL OF FREEDOM: falloffreedom.com
CALL FOR FILMS
Please join The Film-Makers’ Cooperative and Canyon Cinema in support of Fall of Freedom – an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. This fall, our two organizations are reaching out together to the experimental film and media community to be part of a nationwide wave of creative resistance. You can participate by creating a short film of 10 seconds in length that expresses your sense of urgency at this moment. Your film will become a part of a single film that will combine all of our contributions.
This is our invitation to film and media artists and enthusiasts to take part. Collectively, we will challenge the rise of American fascism.
In 1967, a group of angry but concerned filmmakers gathered together to organize the first FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR. With the Vietnam War escalating wildly, an invitation was issued to artists to create works running under three minutes in protest against the accumulating carnage. The resulting 60-film compilation included works by such avant-garde luminaries as Robert Breer, Shirley Clarke, Storm De Hirsch, Ken Jacobs, Lawrence Jordan, Jonas Mekas, Stan VanDerBeek, and numerous other FMC and Canyon members.
In 2007, an invitation to protest yet another war seemed sadly urgent, inspiring the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative to ring the clarion once again. The response was overwhelming, with submissions from several generations of artists unified by a singular disgust for the war. As a collective effort, FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR, AGAIN brought together many active members from the Coop and Canyon.
How to Participate: Create a 10 second film as an .mp4 video file. Label your file: last_name_first_name.mp4 Send your completed file to info@film-makerscoop.com either via email or using a file transfer program like Google Drive, WeTransfer, or Dropbox. Deadline: November 10, 2025. Do not include credits of any kind. All participants will be given a credit at the end of the film. For freedom of every kind, Canyon Cinema The Film-Makers’ Cooperative
Join us at e-flux Screening Room for an evening dedicated to Allen Ginsberg, bringing together a live performance, poetry reading, and screening of two works by Jonas Mekas, the 1997 Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit along with an untitled video portrait of Ginsberg. Guest-curated by Conor Williams, the evening reflects on how Ginsberg’s voice continues to move across music, cinema, and contemporary literary and artistic communities.
The program will open with a live performance of Ginsberg’s punk composition “Capitol Air,” interpreted by Emily Greenberg, Daniel Cooke, and Williams. Written in the early 1980s and later performed with The Clash, the song underscores Ginsberg’s presence as both poet and musician. The performance will be followed by Ginsberg’s poems read by Hannah Beerman, Lynne Sachs, Terrence Arjoon, and A. S. Hamrah. The program will conclude with a screening of two works by Jonas Mekas: Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit,filmed at Ginsberg’s East Village loft in the days immediately following his death in April 1997; along with an additional video portrait of Ginsberg by Mekas, bridging footage recorded with Ginsberg in 1987 and Mekas’s reflections in 1997.
Films
Jonas Mekas, Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (1997, 66 minutes) A video record of the Buddhist Wake ceremony at Allen Ginsberg’s flat. One can see Ginsberg, now asleep forever, in his bed; some of his close friends; the wrapping up and removal of his body, and the final farewell at the Buddhist temple. Mekas also describes his last conversation with Ginsberg.
Jonas Mekas, Untitled Ginsberg video (1997, 22 minutes) Allen Ginsberg records Jonas Mekas, his wife Hollis Melton, and son Sebastian Mekas in their loft apartment.
In this month’s picks, a portrait of a vanguard filmmaker, a look back at a televised clash between writers, and a reflection on a Hollywood star and pinup.
The proliferationof documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we select three nonfiction films — classics, overlooked recent docs and more — that will reward your time.
The “Law & Order: SVU” star Mariska Hargitay was just 3 when her mother, Jayne Mansfield, died in a car crash in 1967. Hargitay herself was in the back seat and only survived because her 6-year-old brother had the presence of mind to ask where she was — that is, why she hadn’t been retrieved from the wreck. In “My Mom Jayne,” Hargitay sets out to learn more about a parent of whom she had no memories, and whose public image differed starkly from her private life.
Early on, we see a clip in which Mansfield was a guest on Groucho Marx’s show; Marx emphasizes that she is far more than the ditzy-blonde avatar her audiences perceived. In another clip, she bristles that her figure had received more attention than her intellect. “My Mom Jayne” explains she was multilingual and had a passion for piano and violin. She was exacting about her career and harbored ambitions to be a serious actress, but was told at an early Paramount audition that she was wasting her “obvious talents.” Hargitay confesses to being upset by the high-pitched, Marilyn Monroe-esque voice with which Mansfield spoke in movies and on TV, which wasn’t how she talked in life. (There is brief footage in which she speaks about wounded veterans that the movie presents as showing the real her.)
But “My Mom Jayne” is more than a simple effort to show that Jayne Mansfield was deeper than her fans knew at the time. Her troubled relationships with men and early death left Hargitay with tangled family dynamics (she was raised by Mickey Hargitay, the bodybuilder who was Mansfield’s second husband, and Mickey’s later wife, Ellen, in what’s portrayed as a loving, close-knit group) and a lot of questions about the past. “My Mom Jayne” is in some ways closer to documentary psychodramas like Lynne Sachs’s “Film About a Father Who” than it is to a standard celebrity portrait, and it has a tenderness that is rare in the genre.
Gunvor Nelson (1931–2025) was an acclaimed Swedish experimental filmmaker who made the Bay Area her home for nearly four decades. Born and raised in Kristinehamn, Sweden, she originally came to California in 1953 to study art and art history, first at Humboldt State College, then the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), and finally Mills College, where she earned an MFA in painting. Between 1970 and 1992, she taught at SFAI, where she influenced generations of filmmakers. In 1993 she returned to Sweden and shifted her practice from 16mm filmmaking to digital video.
Over the years, Nelson made personal films that explored her own life and experiences. She thought deeply and freely about film editing and about when to use sound or allow a film to be silent. She collaborated with Dorothy Wiley on five films, three of which are included in this tribute: Schmeerguntz, Fog Pumas, and Before Need Redressed. BAMPFA holds Nelson’s 16mm camera originals and copies of her films in our film vault. In 2019 My Name Is Oona was named to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.
Films in this Screening
Carolee, Barbara & Gunvor Lynne Sachs, United States, 2018
Red Shift Gunvor Nelson, United States, Sweden, 1984
Before Need Redressed Gunvor Nelson, Dorothy Wiley, United States, Sweden, 1994
When: Friday, November 21st Doors: 7:00pm | Films Start: 8:00pm Where: INTERCOMM, 5-84 Woodward Ave, Ridgewood, NY Entry: $10 NOTAFLOF
Penumbra is a congregational, large screen, experimental film-watching series inspired by the fleeting illumination of projectors in a world of shadows cast upon the moon. This first installment of short films, Transference, meditates upon themes of transformation, ritual, motherhood, death, and geographical memory.
The program is curated by Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Katy Mongeau, and Sarah Viviana Valdez and includes new works by the curators alongside films from Lynne Sachs, Jennifer Montgomery, Rose Bush, Kelly Yan, and Asuka Lin.
Film stills: 1. ‘Same Stream Twice’ Lynne Sachs 2. ‘Dweller Between Waters’ Maralie Armstrong-Rial 3. ‘TWBT’ Katy Mongeau 4. ‘SUNSETBLOOMSASIFAFLOWER’ Sarah Viviana Valdez 5. ‘Vultures of Tibet’ Rose Bush 6. ‘After the Final No There Comes a Yes’ Jennifer Montgomery 7. ‘AI Mama’ Asuka Lin 8. ‘A City Shaped Dream’ Kelly Yan
