John Gianvito
Birth : 1956-01-01, Staten Island, New York, USA
History
John Gianvito is an independent film director based in Boston, where he also holds an Associate Professorship in the Department of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College. He has taught at numerous major universities in New England and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Robert Flaherty International Film Seminar. His extensive curatorial work also includes a five-year appointment as Film Programmer at the Harvard Film Archive. He made his debut as a director in 1978 with his short film The Direct Approach and rose to prominence with the subsequent feature The Flower of Pain (1983), a semi-autobiographical film about an adolescent relationship structured as a series of fragments, or “shards of memory” in Gianvito’s words. Commenting on the film to the Viennale, Gianvito described his attempt at “stripping away as much personal anecdotal material as possible, and concentrating on uncovering within each scene the disruptions, the unconscious and conscious mistakes.” Most recently, Gianvito has made Vapor Trail (Clark) which had its world premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2010. That same year, his documentary Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007), inspired by Howard Zinn’s famous tome A People’s History of the United States, was named one of the fifty greatest documentaries of all time by Time Out New York. For his extraordinary and unique contributions to cinema, Gianvito received the French honorary title of Knight in the Order of Art and Letters in 2001.
– Wen Zhuang
Director
Rotterdam regular John Gianvito (Vapor Trail (Clark), IFFR 2010) checks in with a sensitive, homebound film diary recorded in the pandemic years 2020-2022. The watchful, wary stance of deer outside his house triggers a series of fragments associated with death, burial, mourning and care: Gianvito calls it 'a requiem'. Snatches of classic soundtracks (including Renoir's Partiede campagne, 1936) and glimpses of news broadcasts expand the private, intimate context.
Cinematography
The memory of a particular moment in early 20th century history when, in 1913, Helen Keller (1880-1968), a deaf-blind writer, lecturer and political activist, spoke, for the first time and in public, about socialism and progressive causes.
Editor
The memory of a particular moment in early 20th century history when, in 1913, Helen Keller (1880-1968), a deaf-blind writer, lecturer and political activist, spoke, for the first time and in public, about socialism and progressive causes.
Director
The memory of a particular moment in early 20th century history when, in 1913, Helen Keller (1880-1968), a deaf-blind writer, lecturer and political activist, spoke, for the first time and in public, about socialism and progressive causes.
Director
First begun in 2006, WAKE (SUBIC) completes the documentary diptych, FOR EXAMPLE, THE PHILIPPINES, the first part of which, VAPOR TRAIL (CLARK) was released in 2010. Collectively this nine-hour essay explores circumstances of toxic contamination around the former US military bases in the Philippines as the locus for a meditation on historical amnesia, colonial privilege, and the consequences of unchecked militarism. Interweaving both cinéma-vérité and interview footage of Filipino victims and their families, environmental spokespersons, and community activists, along with early photographic material pertaining to the Philippine-American War, partisan songs, historical texts, and landscape photography, both films are an attempt to construct a work capable of rendering some measure of this human and environmental tragedy and the complexities of its remedy.
Director
Taking inspiration from the collaborative 1967 militant anthology film Far from Vietnam, five of the boldest and most prominent American militant filmmakers unite to create this searing (and seething) omnibus work, employing a variety of approaches to reveal the hidden costs of the United States' (and Canada's) most expensive and longest-running war. (TIFF)
Director
While Afghanistan burns, America fiddles…John Gianvito’s film is a mosaical journey through a dark night of the soul. As fog descends upon the landscape, a man attempts to lull himself to sleep. Across the nation, Americans embrace their pleasures. 7000 miles away U.S. and coalition forces leave behind a trail of death, destruction, and profound resentment among many of the people of Afghanistan. Business as usual. A tirade and indictment against a decade of slaughter and occupation, and the “fruits” of American exceptionalism. With André Gregory.
Director
An investigation into the ecological disaster caused by a US military base on the Philippines – and its victims, their world. A humble act of solidarity, a defiant work of remembrance, a rallying cry to rise and resist, a cinematic prose poem.
Animation
A visual essay about the progressive tradition of the United States as seen through grave markers and monuments.
Sound
A visual essay about the progressive tradition of the United States as seen through grave markers and monuments.
Editor
A visual essay about the progressive tradition of the United States as seen through grave markers and monuments.
Director of Photography
A visual essay about the progressive tradition of the United States as seen through grave markers and monuments.
Producer
A visual essay about the progressive tradition of the United States as seen through grave markers and monuments.
Writer
A visual essay about the progressive tradition of the United States as seen through grave markers and monuments.
Director
A visual essay about the progressive tradition of the United States as seen through grave markers and monuments.
Writer
On September 11th, 2001, the security bubble, within which so many Americans live, was violently perforated and, at least for a moment, the air, the heart, the eye was pierced by the rageful acts of the discontented, soon supplanted by the vengeful ax of the U.S. response. This video is an imagistic evocation of the climate (emotional and otherwise) of this time.
Director
On September 11th, 2001, the security bubble, within which so many Americans live, was violently perforated and, at least for a moment, the air, the heart, the eye was pierced by the rageful acts of the discontented, soon supplanted by the vengeful ax of the U.S. response. This video is an imagistic evocation of the climate (emotional and otherwise) of this time.
Mr. Blacksmith
A cri de coeur against Iraq War I from writer-director John Gianvito (Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind).
Editor
A cri de coeur against Iraq War I from writer-director John Gianvito (Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind).
Producer
A cri de coeur against Iraq War I from writer-director John Gianvito (Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind).
Director
A cri de coeur against Iraq War I from writer-director John Gianvito (Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind).
Writer
A cri de coeur against Iraq War I from writer-director John Gianvito (Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind).
Director
Three figures - man, woman, child - roam the grounds of a State Mental Hospital, a kind of hell on earth, looking for each other or for a supreme witness to their loneliness. A visual poem with voices off.
Director
Five «cinematographic letters» by five filmmakers addressed to individuals with whom it was impossible to correspond in real life. Filmed in a combination of Super-8, video and 16mm in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Montreal, the five episodes are, Letter to an Unborn Child, Letter to a Romantic Ideal, Letter to an Innocent Victim, Letter to a Suicide, and Letter to the Unknown.
A semi-autobiographical film about an adolescent relationship, about emotional illiterates of a particular age and milieu. Structured as a series of fragments – so called “shards of memory” – the film follows the progressive dissolution of the affair in search for clues to its undoing.
Writer
A semi-autobiographical film about an adolescent relationship, about emotional illiterates of a particular age and milieu. Structured as a series of fragments – so called “shards of memory” – the film follows the progressive dissolution of the affair in search for clues to its undoing.
Cinematography
A semi-autobiographical film about an adolescent relationship, about emotional illiterates of a particular age and milieu. Structured as a series of fragments – so called “shards of memory” – the film follows the progressive dissolution of the affair in search for clues to its undoing.
Editor
A semi-autobiographical film about an adolescent relationship, about emotional illiterates of a particular age and milieu. Structured as a series of fragments – so called “shards of memory” – the film follows the progressive dissolution of the affair in search for clues to its undoing.
Sound
A semi-autobiographical film about an adolescent relationship, about emotional illiterates of a particular age and milieu. Structured as a series of fragments – so called “shards of memory” – the film follows the progressive dissolution of the affair in search for clues to its undoing.
Director
A semi-autobiographical film about an adolescent relationship, about emotional illiterates of a particular age and milieu. Structured as a series of fragments – so called “shards of memory” – the film follows the progressive dissolution of the affair in search for clues to its undoing.
Producer
a short meditation on the student residency of Boston’s historic Mission Hill neighborhood.
