Monday, January 28th, 7:30pm, free
Jem Cohen is a New York-based film and videomaker. Often shooting in hundreds of locations with little or no additional crew, Cohen collects street footage, portraits, and sounds. The projects built from these archives defy easy categorization, thriving on the collision between documentary, narrative, and experimental approaches. Some of the projects are personal/political city portraits made on travels around the globe. Many center around daily life and ephemeral moments: things seen out of the corner of the eye and pulled into the center.
Cohen has made two feature-length documentaries: INSTRUMENT (with and about Fugazi) and BENJAMIN SMOKE (co-directed by Peter Sillen) and a feature-length narrative/documentary hybrid, CHAIN. He has worked with musicians including Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Vic Chesnutt, Terry Riley, Sparklehorse, Blonde Redhead, R.E.M., Elliott Smith, Jonathan Richman, Stephen Vitiello, and Gil Shaham with the Orpheus Orchestra.
Cohen's work has been broadcast by PBS, the BBC, Planete, and the Sundance Channel. Awards include first prizes at Locarno International Film Festival, Bonn Videonale, Festival Dei Popoli, Doubletake Documentary Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Film + Arc, Graz, and an Independent Spirit Award. Cohen is a Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Creative Capital Foundation Fellow.