Jay Rosenblatt

Jay Rosenblatt

History

Jay Rosenblatt is an American experimental documentary filmmaker known for his work in the field of collage film since 1980.

Profile

Jay Rosenblatt

Movies

How Do You Measure a Year?
Self
Each year, a father films his daughter on her birthday, asking her the same questions. In just 29 minutes, we watch her grow from a toddler to a young woman with all the beautiful and awkward stages in between. Each phase is fleetingly captured but leaves an indelible mark. Her answers to her father’s questions are just a backdrop for a deeper story of parental love and independence.
How Do You Measure a Year?
Sound
Each year, a father films his daughter on her birthday, asking her the same questions. In just 29 minutes, we watch her grow from a toddler to a young woman with all the beautiful and awkward stages in between. Each phase is fleetingly captured but leaves an indelible mark. Her answers to her father’s questions are just a backdrop for a deeper story of parental love and independence.
How Do You Measure a Year?
Editor
Each year, a father films his daughter on her birthday, asking her the same questions. In just 29 minutes, we watch her grow from a toddler to a young woman with all the beautiful and awkward stages in between. Each phase is fleetingly captured but leaves an indelible mark. Her answers to her father’s questions are just a backdrop for a deeper story of parental love and independence.
How Do You Measure a Year?
Director of Photography
Each year, a father films his daughter on her birthday, asking her the same questions. In just 29 minutes, we watch her grow from a toddler to a young woman with all the beautiful and awkward stages in between. Each phase is fleetingly captured but leaves an indelible mark. Her answers to her father’s questions are just a backdrop for a deeper story of parental love and independence.
How Do You Measure a Year?
Producer
Each year, a father films his daughter on her birthday, asking her the same questions. In just 29 minutes, we watch her grow from a toddler to a young woman with all the beautiful and awkward stages in between. Each phase is fleetingly captured but leaves an indelible mark. Her answers to her father’s questions are just a backdrop for a deeper story of parental love and independence.
How Do You Measure a Year?
Director
Each year, a father films his daughter on her birthday, asking her the same questions. In just 29 minutes, we watch her grow from a toddler to a young woman with all the beautiful and awkward stages in between. Each phase is fleetingly captured but leaves an indelible mark. Her answers to her father’s questions are just a backdrop for a deeper story of parental love and independence.
When We Were Bullies
Self
A mind-boggling "coincidence" leads the filmmaker to track down his fifth grade class – and fifth grade teacher – to examine their memory of and complicity in a bullying incident fifty years ago.
When We Were Bullies
Director of Photography
A mind-boggling "coincidence" leads the filmmaker to track down his fifth grade class – and fifth grade teacher – to examine their memory of and complicity in a bullying incident fifty years ago.
When We Were Bullies
Producer
A mind-boggling "coincidence" leads the filmmaker to track down his fifth grade class – and fifth grade teacher – to examine their memory of and complicity in a bullying incident fifty years ago.
When We Were Bullies
Writer
A mind-boggling "coincidence" leads the filmmaker to track down his fifth grade class – and fifth grade teacher – to examine their memory of and complicity in a bullying incident fifty years ago.
When We Were Bullies
Director
A mind-boggling "coincidence" leads the filmmaker to track down his fifth grade class – and fifth grade teacher – to examine their memory of and complicity in a bullying incident fifty years ago.
Filmmakers Unite (FU)
Director
The Kodachrome Elegies
Director
The Kodachrome elegies is a short documentary about a lost film stock, the loss of innocence and the end of an era.
Scared Very Scared
Director
An imagined therapy session that obliquely suggests the seeds of "Trump" and the subsequent fear and anxiety he evokes.
When You Awake
Director
An unscientific and comedic study of what happens when two people are hypnotized leading into an exhilarating journey into the unconscious mind (the repository for fears, desires, aggression, dreams) where all the images, sounds and music are from found footage.
The Claustrum
Editor
Three women are in enclosed psychological zones that function as both refuge and jail.
The Claustrum
Producer
Three women are in enclosed psychological zones that function as both refuge and jail.
The Claustrum
Director
Three women are in enclosed psychological zones that function as both refuge and jail.
Inquire Within
Director
INQUIRE WITHIN is a hypnotic, apocalyptic examination of false choices, double binds, vulnerability and faith.
Way to Your Heart
Director
Found Footage Rock Video
The D Train
Editor
An old man reflects on his entire life. How quickly it all goes by.
The D Train
Producer
An old man reflects on his entire life. How quickly it all goes by.
The D Train
himself
An old man reflects on his entire life. How quickly it all goes by.
The D Train
Director
An old man reflects on his entire life. How quickly it all goes by.
The Darkness of Day
Editor
The Darkness of Day is a haunting meditation on suicide. It is comprised entirely of found 16mm footage that had been discarded. The sadness, the isolation, and the desire to escape are recorded on film in various contexts. Voice-over readings from the journal kept by a brother of the filmmaker’s friend who committed suicide in 1990 intermix with a range of compelling stories, from the poignant double suicide of an elderly American couple to a Japanese teenager who jumped into a volcano, spawning over a thousand imitations. While this is a serious exploration of a cultural taboo, its lyrical qualities invite the viewer to approach the subject with understanding and compassion.
The Darkness of Day
Writer
The Darkness of Day is a haunting meditation on suicide. It is comprised entirely of found 16mm footage that had been discarded. The sadness, the isolation, and the desire to escape are recorded on film in various contexts. Voice-over readings from the journal kept by a brother of the filmmaker’s friend who committed suicide in 1990 intermix with a range of compelling stories, from the poignant double suicide of an elderly American couple to a Japanese teenager who jumped into a volcano, spawning over a thousand imitations. While this is a serious exploration of a cultural taboo, its lyrical qualities invite the viewer to approach the subject with understanding and compassion.
The Darkness of Day
Director
The Darkness of Day is a haunting meditation on suicide. It is comprised entirely of found 16mm footage that had been discarded. The sadness, the isolation, and the desire to escape are recorded on film in various contexts. Voice-over readings from the journal kept by a brother of the filmmaker’s friend who committed suicide in 1990 intermix with a range of compelling stories, from the poignant double suicide of an elderly American couple to a Japanese teenager who jumped into a volcano, spawning over a thousand imitations. While this is a serious exploration of a cultural taboo, its lyrical qualities invite the viewer to approach the subject with understanding and compassion.
Beginning Filmmaking
Director
A father takes us through one year of trying to teach a preschooler how to make a film.
Four Questions for a Rabbi
Director
When Stacey Ross unexpectedly died in 2007, her friends contacted filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt to complete a project she had only just begun. The result is FOUR QUESTIONS FOR A RABBI, a film that touches upon issues of identity, persecution and mortality.
One Minute Racist
Camera Operator
Caveh Zahedi tells the story of a contentious encounter with a college security guard, a story about a moment's lapse into racism. The film attempts to shed light on the mental process by which racism becomes internalized.
I Just Wanted to Be Somebody
Director
Newsreels, commercials, and home movies are used to study the life and influence of Anita Bryant.
Afraid So
Director
A film about fear and anxiety. 
Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival


I Am a Sex Addict
Editorial Consultant
Just moments before his third wedding, Zahedi relates with utter sincerity and astonishing candor his obsession with prostitutes. He retraces his romantic and sexual history, including his ideological commitment to open relationships, that led to two disastrous marriages and several very pissed off ex-girlfriends.
I Am a Sex Addict
L.A. Therapist
Just moments before his third wedding, Zahedi relates with utter sincerity and astonishing candor his obsession with prostitutes. He retraces his romantic and sexual history, including his ideological commitment to open relationships, that led to two disastrous marriages and several very pissed off ex-girlfriends.
Phantom Limb
Director
The death of my seven-year-old brother when I was nine remains a painful and haunting memory. My parents did not know how to cope with the loss of their child and the entire family experienced indescribable pain. Phantom Limb uses this personal story as a point of departure. Whether it is a loss through death or divorce, the stages of grieving are the same. Individuals often go through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, ultimately, some kind of acceptance, in order to heal. The film is loosely structured according to these stages. Interspersed throughout this poetic documentary are interviews with a cemetery owner, a phantom limb patient and an author of a book about evidence for life after death. Phantom Limb reminds viewers that while grief is painful and isolating, it is a reminder to each of us that life is impermanent. - Jay Rosenblatt
I'm Charlie Chaplin
Director
... because it's Halloween.
I Like It a Lot
Director
A two year old, an ice cream cone and a clean, white shirt.
I Used to Be a Filmmaker
Director
A film about fatherhood and the bond between a father and his infant daughter. The filmmaker documents the first eighteen months of the child’s life, showing the progression from newborn to infant to toddler.
Prayer
Director

Faith and fear. Duck and cover. One response to 9/11.
 Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival

Underground Zero
Director
A collection of shorts made by various directors in response to 9/11.
Nine Lives (The Eternal Moment of Now)
Director
Exploring imagination, memories, dreams, or past lives of Pinky the cat.
Worm
Director
An off-screen narrator remembers a time he was five years old, walking to school in a heavy rain, wearing a yellow slicker and cap. He relates to us that a boy he'd never seen before ran up to him and said that it was raining worms. Our lad of five is on the cusp between believing anything he hears and entering the age of reason. He asks for proof. He holds out his hand.
Restricted
Director
Take a chance. Don't do it. This is America. Do it.
King of the Jews
Narrator
King of the Jews is a film about anti-Semitism and transcendence. Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950's educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism.
King of the Jews
Editor
King of the Jews is a film about anti-Semitism and transcendence. Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950's educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism.
King of the Jews
Producer
King of the Jews is a film about anti-Semitism and transcendence. Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950's educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism.
King of the Jews
Writer
King of the Jews is a film about anti-Semitism and transcendence. Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950's educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism.
King of the Jews
Director
King of the Jews is a film about anti-Semitism and transcendence. Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950's educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism.
Drop
Director
The trials and tribulations of truly independent filmmaking and the quest for the perfect shot.
Human Remains
Director
Human Remains is a haunting documentary which illustrates the banality of evil by creating intimate portraits of five of the 20th century's most reviled dictators. The film unveils the personal lives of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco and Mao Tse Tung. We learn the private and mundane details of their everyday lives -- their favorite foods, films, habits and sexual preferences. There is no mention of their public lives or of their place in history. The intentional omission of the horrors for which these men were responsible hovers over the film.
Period Piece
Producer
Period Piece is a 30 min. documentary about menarche--a girl's first menstrual period--which is a fundamental experience in every woman's life, yet one that is rarely celebrated. Women of different ages (8-84) and multi-cultural backgrounds tell their menarchal stories.
Period Piece
Director
Period Piece is a 30 min. documentary about menarche--a girl's first menstrual period--which is a fundamental experience in every woman's life, yet one that is rarely celebrated. Women of different ages (8-84) and multi-cultural backgrounds tell their menarchal stories.
The Smell of Burning Ants
Editor
A haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness.
The Smell of Burning Ants
Director
A haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness.
Short of Breath
Editor
A woman is reduced to tears. She bends over backwards trying to be a good wife and mother. Her head is cut off from her heart. A doctor picks her brain. A boy inherits his mother's depression. Short of Breath is a haunting, emotional collage about birth, death, sex and suicide. It's like a punch in the stomach.
Short of Breath
Writer
A woman is reduced to tears. She bends over backwards trying to be a good wife and mother. Her head is cut off from her heart. A doctor picks her brain. A boy inherits his mother's depression. Short of Breath is a haunting, emotional collage about birth, death, sex and suicide. It's like a punch in the stomach.
Short of Breath
Director
A woman is reduced to tears. She bends over backwards trying to be a good wife and mother. Her head is cut off from her heart. A doctor picks her brain. A boy inherits his mother's depression. Short of Breath is a haunting, emotional collage about birth, death, sex and suicide. It's like a punch in the stomach.
Brain in the Desert
Director
A haunting and humorous film about romantic relationships and insects.
A Pregnant Moment
A 'dog-u-mentary' about birth, loss and near death. The film follows three adults and a dog named Lola through Lola's pregnancy, the birth of her puppies, and the loss of each puppy to their new owners. Often funny and ultimately sad, the piece explores our love and attachments to dogs and our projections onto animals.
A Pregnant Moment
Editor
A 'dog-u-mentary' about birth, loss and near death. The film follows three adults and a dog named Lola through Lola's pregnancy, the birth of her puppies, and the loss of each puppy to their new owners. Often funny and ultimately sad, the piece explores our love and attachments to dogs and our projections onto animals.
A Pregnant Moment
Producer
A 'dog-u-mentary' about birth, loss and near death. The film follows three adults and a dog named Lola through Lola's pregnancy, the birth of her puppies, and the loss of each puppy to their new owners. Often funny and ultimately sad, the piece explores our love and attachments to dogs and our projections onto animals.
A Pregnant Moment
Director
A 'dog-u-mentary' about birth, loss and near death. The film follows three adults and a dog named Lola through Lola's pregnancy, the birth of her puppies, and the loss of each puppy to their new owners. Often funny and ultimately sad, the piece explores our love and attachments to dogs and our projections onto animals.
Friend Good
Director
Mary Shelley’s writing combines with Boris Karloff’s performance to re-work the myth of Frankenstein. In five minutes the “monster” moves through the very human journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance.