Isidore Bethel
Birth : 1989-01-01,
History
Isidore Bethel is an editor, director, and producer whom Filmmaker named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2020. His work uses filmmaking to make sense of overwhelming experiences and touches on recurrent themes of displacement, grief, therapy, aging, trauma, and sexuality. His first feature film as director, Liam, premiered at the Boston LGBT Film Festival in 2018 and received the Jury Prize in the Documentary section of the Paris LGBTQ+ Film Festival. His second film, Acts of Love, co-directed with French actor Francis Leplay, premiered at Hot Docs in 2021. The films he has edited and produced have screened at Cannes (Official and ACID sections), IDFA, Visions du Réel, Cinéma du Réel, True/False, and MoMA's Documentary Fortnight. In addition to working in the United States, Mexico, and France, he has also edited and produced films with filmmakers in Lebanon, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, and Turkey. Critics have characterized his work as demonstrative of "admirable restraint," "Wiseman-esque," "tender," and "elegant."
Co-Producer
At the age of 89, Julián Moreno takes one last bus ride to El Paso, Texas, to visit his daughters and their children – a lengthy trip he has made without fail every month for decades. After returning to rural Mexico, he quietly starts building a house in the empty lot next to his home. In the absence of his physical visits, can this new house bridge the distance between his loved ones?
Writer
At the age of 89, Julián Moreno takes one last bus ride to El Paso, Texas, to visit his daughters and their children – a lengthy trip he has made without fail every month for decades. After returning to rural Mexico, he quietly starts building a house in the empty lot next to his home. In the absence of his physical visits, can this new house bridge the distance between his loved ones?
Editor
At the age of 89, Julián Moreno takes one last bus ride to El Paso, Texas, to visit his daughters and their children – a lengthy trip he has made without fail every month for decades. After returning to rural Mexico, he quietly starts building a house in the empty lot next to his home. In the absence of his physical visits, can this new house bridge the distance between his loved ones?
Producer
Incarcerated participants in a mental health experiment watch videos of sunset-soaked beaches, wildflowers and forests on loop, prompting them to reflect on isolation and wilderness. Equal parts meditation and provocation, Blue Room identifies the damage done by withholding access to the outdoors and how we are all prisoners when the essential human need for communion with nature is denied.
Editor
Incarcerated participants in a mental health experiment watch videos of sunset-soaked beaches, wildflowers and forests on loop, prompting them to reflect on isolation and wilderness. Equal parts meditation and provocation, Blue Room identifies the damage done by withholding access to the outdoors and how we are all prisoners when the essential human need for communion with nature is denied.
Writer
The filmmaker tries to communicate with the sheep living where his parents are buried.
Producer
The filmmaker tries to communicate with the sheep living where his parents are buried.
Editor
The filmmaker tries to communicate with the sheep living where his parents are buried.
Writer
When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.
Producer
When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.
When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.
Director
When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.
Associate Producer
Chicago artists Jackie and Don Seiden are a half-century into their marriage, time spent creating distinct yet congruous bodies of work. Jackie makes art of everything around her. Central to her practice is a recognition of the fragility of materials. That conceptual interest has turned into daily reality, as both her body and one of her most ambitious art projects, her canary-yellow Victorian house, start to fall apart. Don’s work reveals a mind resigned to death. He has always been interested in the rules of nature, and now he finds himself facing inevitable health scares. So Late So Soon is a sensitively constructed, playful character study that honors Jackie and Don’s art, and even becomes a part of it, while also locating in it glimmers of their essence.
Editor
Chicago artists Jackie and Don Seiden are a half-century into their marriage, time spent creating distinct yet congruous bodies of work. Jackie makes art of everything around her. Central to her practice is a recognition of the fragility of materials. That conceptual interest has turned into daily reality, as both her body and one of her most ambitious art projects, her canary-yellow Victorian house, start to fall apart. Don’s work reveals a mind resigned to death. He has always been interested in the rules of nature, and now he finds himself facing inevitable health scares. So Late So Soon is a sensitively constructed, playful character study that honors Jackie and Don’s art, and even becomes a part of it, while also locating in it glimmers of their essence.
Consulting Producer
Nando, a young horse wrangler in a rural Mexican village, has taken his own life following a disagreement with his father. Caballerango shows the boy’s family members and townspeople as they reckon with the new realities borne out of this inexplicable tragedy. Each account of Nando’s story reveals a different aspect of this rural town, which is deeply affected by modernization. The confrontation between the centuries-old ways of life and the modern-day world seems to be creating serious identity crises among the younger generation. The story is told in a patient, observational style with methodical shots of the landscape, ranches, and of the two white horses, whom Nando and his father tended to. Those horses, the last to see Nando alive, connect us to an ethereal sensation of almost otherworldly mystical beings.
Editor
Nando, a young horse wrangler in a rural Mexican village, has taken his own life following a disagreement with his father. Caballerango shows the boy’s family members and townspeople as they reckon with the new realities borne out of this inexplicable tragedy. Each account of Nando’s story reveals a different aspect of this rural town, which is deeply affected by modernization. The confrontation between the centuries-old ways of life and the modern-day world seems to be creating serious identity crises among the younger generation. The story is told in a patient, observational style with methodical shots of the landscape, ranches, and of the two white horses, whom Nando and his father tended to. Those horses, the last to see Nando alive, connect us to an ethereal sensation of almost otherworldly mystical beings.
Writer
Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.
Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.
Producer
Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.
Director
Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.
Producer
The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park is a film that celebrates the everyday life of a group of Indigenous people, exiles from Canadian reserves, who, over a fleeting summer, hang out in a contested park in Vancouver. Through direct participation in the filmmaking process, the day to day becomes a ceremonial space in the ongoing confrontation against law and order.
Editor
The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park is a film that celebrates the everyday life of a group of Indigenous people, exiles from Canadian reserves, who, over a fleeting summer, hang out in a contested park in Vancouver. Through direct participation in the filmmaking process, the day to day becomes a ceremonial space in the ongoing confrontation against law and order.
Producer
Filmed over five years, this documentary charts the progress of several veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder at a California clinic.
Editor
Filmed over five years, this documentary charts the progress of several veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder at a California clinic.
Editor
In 2002, on the occasion of her brother’s wedding, Dominique Cabrera begun to shoot the gathering, and decided to continue over 10 years, time imprinting its marks on her family and "becoming the film" as she expresses it. Halfway between Agnès Varda and Alain Cavalier, Dominique Cabrera delivers a sensitive film both intimate and universal: "Ten years ago, my brother Bernard got married for the second time. We all went to the wedding in Boston, where he lives. It felt as if we were four little children again with our mom and dad. I had brought along a small camera, which I began to use to film our family. I've continued to this day..."
