WRITING

2009

Being and Seeing with Jem Cohen

A few nights ago, on the first crisp evening of autumn, I emerged from a film screening at the Millennium Film Workshop onto East 4th Street in Manhattan with Jem Cohen. Nested in the sublime clutter and cacophony of the Lower East Side, this block between 2nd and 3rd Avenue is home to some of the most innovative theater and film venues in New York City. It’s a dark, quiet, albeit decrepit, building that seems to hide its cinematic and theatrical secrets with a kind of futuristic pleasure. As we headed east toward the subway that would lead us both to our homes in Brooklyn, Jem gasped, not really out of fear or even surprise, but rather as if an internal light had gone on inside his mind, awakening a memory he needed to release. “Wait,” he exclaimed, “let’s go this way instead. I want to show you the most beautiful building in New York City.”

2009

TEACHING: Media Mavericks Course on Experiments in Documentary Syllabus

This semester in Media Mavericks we will explore the experimental media work that has emerged in the realm of the documentary. In our discussion of this movement in film and video, we will consider how the practice of working with reality can be challenged, even transported, by the aesthetic freedom that comes with alternative modes of visual expression.

2009

I am Not a War Photographer by Lynne Sachs

I AM NOT A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER is what I’ve decided to call a group of five films I’ve made over the last thirteen years. After breathlessly watching Christian Freil’s “War Photographer” (2001), the utterly transformative documentary on the life of James Nachtway, print journalism’s quintessential career war photographer, I knew that Nachtway’s remarkable credo —

“Every minute I was there, I wanted to flee. I did not want to see this. Would I cut and run, or would I deal with the responsibility of being there with a camera?”

2009

Thoughts on Argentine Cinema by Lynne Sachs and Mark Street

An Argentine excursion: film frames, talk therapy, and ice cream. By Mark Street and Lynne Sachs (with Pablo Marin) http://www.gonzocircus.com/blog/?page_id=693 Our cinematic relationship to Argentina began in March of 2007, when the Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente (BAFICI) invited Lynne to show a retrospective of her films.  During the one week she was […]

2009

Wind in Our Hair Diary

May 16, 2008                                   Brooklyn, New York Tonight I finished reading Julio Cortazar’s short story “Final del Juego”.  Since I will be spending the summer in Buenos Aires in a few months, I am trying to get a feeling for the city and for the people.  As a mother of two 13 and 11 year-old girls […]

2009

Senses of Buenos Aires: a few of my favorite things

Senses of Buenos Aires a few things about the city that I love by Lynne Sachs Confiteria Ideal In my opinion, this is the most wonderful place to see tango. Real people doing the dance of Argentina with a kind of love and commitment that that will make you want to get on the floor […]

2008

Bruce Conner Remembered

Bruce Conner died in the summer of 2008. For those who may not know, he was a Beat generation artist, the first filmmaker to see the value in “found footage”, and an extraordinary visionary. His collages and films are in museums and archives all over the world. Two different people in Buenos Aires, where I was living last summer, mentioned his death to me without even knowing that I knew him. Bruce was a very important person in my life and psyche.

2008

History of the Artist Abecedarium

Anthropologists, filmmakers, linguists, musicians, painters, poets, writers — all share a fascination with the 26 letters of the alphabet. An abecedarium is traditionally an educational book for children containing words beginning with each letter, but for centuries it has also been a resource for creative work by artists in almost every media. This history of the abecedarium will look at a selection of artists whose intentions are both to celebrate and disrupt this most basic and widespread system of verbal communication.