Tag Archives: teaching

Invocaciones Workshop Ambulante Mexico City

Frames and Stanzas: a master class on film and poetry

Lynne Sachs
Centro de cultura digital  and Ambulante
La Cineteca Nacional, Mexico City

April 11, 2024 – 5 to 6:30 PM / 17 h to 18:30 h

Filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs will share insights she has in bridging poetry with cinema. Participants will explore the intersection between moving images and written or spoken words. Lynne will share excerpts from her own films that explore the activation of archival images, visualization of poetic texts, overlaying text on image, expanded cinema performance, oral history, and the film essay.  This master class will include excerpts from Lynne’s films includingStarfish Aorta Colossus, Tip of My Tongue, The Washing Society, Visit to Bernadette Mayer’s Childhood Home, and Swerve.  As part of the class experience, participants will write a poem.

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Opening the Family Album / “Abrir el álbum familiar”
Lynne Sachs
Ambulante Festival and Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City


Sesiones virtuales: Jueves 14 de marzo, de 19 a 20 horas (9 to 10 PM NYC) y viernes 5 de abril de 17 a 18 horas (7 to 8 PM NYC)
Sábado presenciales: Sábado 13 y domingo 14 de abril, de 11 a 14 horas, final performance April 14 at 6 PM

Opening the Family Album is a workshop in which we will explore the ways in which images of our mother, father, sister, brother, child, cousin, grand-parent, aunt or uncle might become material for the making of a personal film. We will meet virtually twice for one hour: March 14 and April 5. Then we will meet in-person with Lynne for two days (April 13 & 14, 11 am to 14 pm and for a final, public showing later that day at 6 pm), all at Centro Cultural Digital.  Please join Lynne between our workshop and our final performance for her 16mm film program

Each participant will come to the workshop with a single photograph (both in hand and digital) they want to examine.  During the workshop, you will write text in response to this image by incorporating storytelling and performance. In the process, we will discuss and challenge notions of truth-telling and language. Your final work will then be a completed film with sound or a film with live narration. Previous filmmaking and editing experience is appreciated but not required. Participants may use their own digital cameras or cell phones to make images and sounds.  Please register early so that you can be part of our first meeting which will be in March and will be virtual.

This workshop is inspired by the work of Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg, whose writing explores family relationships during the Fascist years and 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.” We will also read texts from Roland Barthes and Clarise Lispector.

Participants are encouraged to have their own cameras, but cell phone cameras are FINE.  Also, if you know how to edit digitally that is helpful but not critical.


Hunter College / The Accident that Pricks: Family and Photography

The MFA Program in Integrated Media Arts (IMA) offers advanced studies in multimedia documentary arts. The IMA Program educates multi-disciplinary, socially engaged media makers in a diverse range of skills across the media landscape. Working with faculty from film, emerging media, and journalism backgrounds, students learn to conceptualize, create and distribute innovative, politically and socially engaged expression using contemporary media technologies.

The Accident that Pricks: Family and Photography
Lynne Sachs
3 sessions, 1 credit – Fall 2022 and Spring 2024
Final Showcase Friday February 23, 2024

Course Description:
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.”  Each student participant will produce a live performance with moving image which will be presented at the end of our third class meeting.
  • Celeste
  • Jane
  • Junia
  • Mark
  • Myrel
  • Shira
  • Sikuma
  • Yashing