Jem Cohen

Jem Cohen's memory-tribute to Jonas Mekas displaces its first-person narration from voice-over to on-screen text. Diaristic New York street imagery from 2015 mingles with the red roses of Lithuania and a 'makeshift memorial' to this beloved figure of the avant-garde.

Jem Cohen's memory-tribute to Jonas Mekas displaces its first-person narration from voice-over to on-screen text. Diaristic New York street imagery from 2015 mingles with the red roses of Lithuania and a 'makeshift memorial' to this beloved figure of the avant-garde.

Jem Cohen's memory-tribute to Jonas Mekas displaces its first-person narration from voice-over to on-screen text. Diaristic New York street imagery from 2015 mingles with the red roses of Lithuania and a 'makeshift memorial' to this beloved figure of the avant-garde.

"Like a floating, drifting piece of ticker tape, the film makes its way across boroughs and time to explore New York City's many moods, from loud and relentless to grave and dreamy."

The stock exchange, the sky, customers, and pedestrians. All are observed at a distance, with care, in the newest work by Jem Cohen.

In "Birth of a Nation", Jem Cohen takes his camera to Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration and to the next day’s protests.

A portrait of Southend-on-Sea, a town along England's Thames estuary, that includes everyday streets, people, birds, water, mud and sky.

An observational portrait of London’s Essex Street, and the inhabitants who work the shops and throng the pavement there (Julie Murray).

A portrait of Peter Hutton.

This film is closely related to my last featurelength project, COUNTING. I take the temperature of a neighborhood. In this case, the place is my New York. I think about street life and its threatened demise – a death ushered in as Big Money relentlessly re-makes cities in ever more categorical ways. I think with the camera, on the move, in fragments. The light seen on a woman’s face in Chapter 3 of COUNTING is blocked by the luxury condo that grows and joins many nearby, as Brooklyn succumbs to gentrification (evinced by a beleaguered postOccupy Wall Street demonstration). Here also is the ever worried, ever renewed hum of the Manhattan crowds which continue to enthrall me. What stays, what gets buried? (Jem Cohen, Viennale 2016)

An associative collection of visual impressions across fifteen chapters: a seagull in Porto, political posters in New York, an abstract painting in St. Petersburg, an abandoned video shop in Cairo and cats everywhere you look.

An associative collection of visual impressions across fifteen chapters: a seagull in Porto, political posters in New York, an abstract painting in St. Petersburg, an abandoned video shop in Cairo and cats everywhere you look.

An associative collection of visual impressions across fifteen chapters: a seagull in Porto, political posters in New York, an abstract painting in St. Petersburg, an abandoned video shop in Cairo and cats everywhere you look.

An associative collection of visual impressions across fifteen chapters: a seagull in Porto, political posters in New York, an abstract painting in St. Petersburg, an abandoned video shop in Cairo and cats everywhere you look.

An associative collection of visual impressions across fifteen chapters: a seagull in Porto, political posters in New York, an abstract painting in St. Petersburg, an abandoned video shop in Cairo and cats everywhere you look.

A collection of films from an eclectic array of contributors commissioned to raise funds for the Bristol independent cinema The Cube.

A sudden rainstorm, 6th Avenue at West Fourth, NYC. That's all.

The most famous Museum in Vienna appears in the film as a mysterious intersection where the characters explore their own lives, the city and how art reflects the world.

The most famous Museum in Vienna appears in the film as a mysterious intersection where the characters explore their own lives, the city and how art reflects the world.

The most famous Museum in Vienna appears in the film as a mysterious intersection where the characters explore their own lives, the city and how art reflects the world.

The most famous Museum in Vienna appears in the film as a mysterious intersection where the characters explore their own lives, the city and how art reflects the world.

The most famous Museum in Vienna appears in the film as a mysterious intersection where the characters explore their own lives, the city and how art reflects the world.

The most famous Museum in Vienna appears in the film as a mysterious intersection where the characters explore their own lives, the city and how art reflects the world.

Cohen, who witnessed the New York occupation from day one, borrowed a digital camera and started gathering footage in subsequent weeks. Initially acting upon an instinctive impulse to document and be guided by the events of the movement through quiet participation, Cohen’s documentation took a more public and expansive form through an agreement with the IFC Center, a local movie theater. In a nod to the once prevalent practice of screening newsreels in theaters before showtimes, a number of Cohen’s Newsreels were activated there as the events of the movement played out nearby, connecting immediate political documentation with the public sphere. The series approaches the events during the Occupy Wall Street Movement through an observational but atmospheric perspective, documenting the stir within the streets and Zuccotti Park, collective actions, police intervention and the sheer presence of the occupation which lasted fifty-four days.

A portrait of artist Anne Truitt made primarily in and around her studio at the Yaddo artists' community.

A portrait of Luce Vigo, film critic, educator, and the daughter of pivotal French filmmaker Jean Vigo. Commissioned by the Spanish documentary festival, Punto de Vista, the film incorporates Luce's memories of her extraordinary life, reflections on her father, and images of Northern Spain. -VDB

Chinatown is an evocative place. It exists in our cities, in our imaginations, on our television screens, and in our memories. It is at once a sprawling, vibrant immigrant community and a forgotten strip mall of buffet restaurants.

A short portrait of Patti Smith in the city where she lives. Patti recites the very first poem-song she ever wrote. We take a walk in her changing neighborhood, and I ask her what she saw.

Chance observations of New York's Chinatown, commissioned by the Museum of Chinese in the Americas. “A sleepwalker’s circumnavigation of one of the less homogenized parts of the city.”–Jem Cohen

A collaboration between Jem Cohen with writer Luc Sante made in Tangier, Morocco, a city where neither of us had ever been. En route from the airport to the city center, we found ourselves amazed by the landscape outside of the car windows; a massive construction project under way in all directions. While not in itself unusual, we were by struck dumb by the epic scale and seemingly incomprehensible plan of the development and were drawn to return together to this puzzling zone. This project was commissioned by TAMAAS, a small foundation based in Paris, as part of their Tangier project, The 8.

This surreal art-movie/live-performance hybrid is comprised of New York filmmaker Jem Cohen's original 16mm and DV movie footage combined with concert clips of Vic Chesnutt and members of Silver Mt. Zion, among others.

This surreal art-movie/live-performance hybrid is comprised of New York filmmaker Jem Cohen's original 16mm and DV movie footage combined with concert clips of Vic Chesnutt and members of Silver Mt. Zion, among others.

This surreal art-movie/live-performance hybrid is comprised of New York filmmaker Jem Cohen's original 16mm and DV movie footage combined with concert clips of Vic Chesnutt and members of Silver Mt. Zion, among others.

This surreal art-movie/live-performance hybrid is comprised of New York filmmaker Jem Cohen's original 16mm and DV movie footage combined with concert clips of Vic Chesnutt and members of Silver Mt. Zion, among others.

"I shot this film with a 16mm wind-up Bolex, and the 25th Anniversary tour of Dutch band The Ex, when they embarked on a 'convey tour' with about 25 performing comrades. If half the battle is getting there and half the battle is joy, then the other half is madness. I thank all of the musicians who float in and out — of the film, in particular, and my life, in general." — Jem Cohen

The official trailer of Viennale - Vienna International Film Festival 2007.

Commissioned by Renew Media to celebrate 20th Anniversary of Media Arts Fellowships

The film is a domestic portrait of Patti and her son, Jackson. William Blake was invited in the form of a plaster cast of his death mask. Kurt Cobain, (conflicted, fierce, gentle, and another mother's son) was invited as an admirer of Leadbelly. Cats were invited as household saints. The film invokes New York and rural America. It is about picking up guitars and doing dirty dishes.

Moving towards an unknown destination, a group of anonymous passengers float through an unidentified landscape

A film by Jem Cohen

In Chain, actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into a monolithic “superlandscape” that shapes and circumscribes the lives of two women. One is a businesswoman researching the international theme park industry for her company. The other is a young drifter, illegally living and occasionally working in a shopping mall.

In Chain, actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into a monolithic “superlandscape” that shapes and circumscribes the lives of two women. One is a businesswoman researching the international theme park industry for her company. The other is a young drifter, illegally living and occasionally working in a shopping mall.

In Chain, actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into a monolithic “superlandscape” that shapes and circumscribes the lives of two women. One is a businesswoman researching the international theme park industry for her company. The other is a young drifter, illegally living and occasionally working in a shopping mall.

In Chain, actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into a monolithic “superlandscape” that shapes and circumscribes the lives of two women. One is a businesswoman researching the international theme park industry for her company. The other is a young drifter, illegally living and occasionally working in a shopping mall.

In Chain, actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into a monolithic “superlandscape” that shapes and circumscribes the lives of two women. One is a businesswoman researching the international theme park industry for her company. The other is a young drifter, illegally living and occasionally working in a shopping mall.

In View: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988–2003 is a DVD featuring videos by the rock band R.E.M. during 1988–2003, released as a companion to the Warner Bros. compilation In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003. All but two of the songs included on the audio CD made the DVD—the exceptions being "All the Right Friends" (which had no official music video) and "Animal" (the video not having been shot until early 2004.)

A short musical film

Benjamin Smoke is the highly acclaimed documentary by directors Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen on legendary underground musician Benjamin Smoke. Benjamin Smoke follows the crooked path of this fringe-dweller, speed-freak, occasional drag-queen and all-around renegade living in the hidden Atlanta neighborhood called “Cabbagetown,” and playing with his band Smoke.

Cohen shot Little Flags in black and white on the streets of lower Manhattan during an early-’90s military ticker-tape parade and edited the footage years later. The crowd noises fade and Cohen shows the litter flooding the streets as the urban location looks progressively more ghostly and distant from the present. Everyone loves a parade—except for the dead.

Instrument is a documentary film directed by Jem Cohen about the band Fugazi. Cohen's relationship with band member Ian MacKaye extends back to the 1970s when the two met in high school in Washington, D.C.. The film takes its title from the Fugazi song of the same name, from their 1993 album, In on the Kill Taker. Editing of the film was done by both Cohen and the members of the band over the course of five years. It was shot from 1987 through 1998 on super 8, 16mm and video and is composed mainly of footage of concerts, interviews with the band members, practices, tours and time spent in the studio recording their 1995 album, Red Medicine. The film also includes portraits of fans as well as interviews with them at various Fugazi shows around the United States throughout the years.

A portrait of Catania, Sicily. Includes the ocean at 5 a.m., the fish market, the distributor of pornographic films, the woodworker, the elephant statue, housing projects, and a young girl in an orange sweater. Catania is a large and remarkable city without many tourists or tourist attractions. Its people live in the shadow of Mt. Aetna, an active volcano.

A portrait of an unnamed city in Italy. Sidestepping the tourist attractions that make the city famous, the film/video posits an almost-imaginary place that draws closer to the reality of its inhabitants. Using a voiceover narration that collages direct observation, literary texts, historical fact, local folklore, and a bit of sheer fabrication, the film/video melds documentary and narrative, past and present. Visuals range from verite street footage, to formal portraits of residents, to an unusual type of time lapse cinematography that allows filming in the low-intensity light of night landscapes and museum interiors. Made in collaboration with local residents and institutions, Amber City reflects on the "in-betweeness" of places whose historical and geographical location renders their reality strangely invisible.

Described as "a cross between a video and a documentary, but actually being neither of the two", singer/songwriter Elliott Smith plays three acoustic songs in this Jem Cohen-directed short film.

Described as "a cross between a video and a documentary, but actually being neither of the two", singer/songwriter Elliott Smith plays three acoustic songs in this Jem Cohen-directed short film.

Described as "a cross between a video and a documentary, but actually being neither of the two", singer/songwriter Elliott Smith plays three acoustic songs in this Jem Cohen-directed short film.

Unreleased silent Super 8 film, shot in the mid 1990s; an early precursor to Museum Hours.

The result of over five years of Super-8 and 16mm filming on New York City streets, Lost Book Found melds documentary and narrative into a complex meditation on city life. The piece revolves around a mysterious notebook filled with obsessive listings of places, objects, and incidents. These listings serve as the key to a hidden city: a city of unconsidered geographies and layered artifacts—the relics of low-level capitalism and the debris of countless forgotten narratives. The project stems from the filmmaker's first job in New York—working as a pushcart vendor on Canal Street. As usual, Cohen shot in hundreds of locations using unobtrusive equipment and generally without any crew. Influenced by the work of Walter Benjamin.

An erotic music video and short film about skinny-dipping.

A meditation on history, memory, and change in Central and Eastern Europe, Buried in Light is a non-narrative journey, a cinematic collage. Cohen’s “search for images” began at a time of extraordinary flux, as the Berlin Wall was dismantled—opening borders yet ushering in a nascent wave of consumer capitalism. What he saw struck him as a profound paradox: the moment Eastern Europe was revealed was simultaneously the moment it was hidden by the blinding light of commercialism. Cohen’s images are neither the tourist’s roster of picturesque vistas and monuments, nor the mass media’s definitive catalog of dramatic moments. Instead, he focuses on details, ordinary objects, and forgotten places—filming daily life as seen on the street.

Black Hole Radio is an installation that consists of taped confessions of callers of the New York City Phone Confession Line and video images. The Phone Confession Line is based on anonymous callers ringing to confess on things they had done or thought like adultery, theft, murder or regrets. Thereafter anybody could call and listen to the confessions. Although making a confession was free, listening to a confession costs money. After Cohen got his hands on the confessions, he used them as an audio heartbeat to accompany video-images of every day life in New York City he had taken over the years. This installation is a portrait of the city with its dark secrets, hushed voices and nocturnal images. In this way Cohen tries to bring across an experience to the viewer that relies on absence, waiting and the effort to hear something in the dark.

Black Hole Radio is an installation that consists of taped confessions of callers of the New York City Phone Confession Line and video images. The Phone Confession Line is based on anonymous callers ringing to confess on things they had done or thought like adultery, theft, murder or regrets. Thereafter anybody could call and listen to the confessions. Although making a confession was free, listening to a confession costs money. After Cohen got his hands on the confessions, he used them as an audio heartbeat to accompany video-images of every day life in New York City he had taken over the years. This installation is a portrait of the city with its dark secrets, hushed voices and nocturnal images. In this way Cohen tries to bring across an experience to the viewer that relies on absence, waiting and the effort to hear something in the dark.

Black Hole Radio is an installation that consists of taped confessions of callers of the New York City Phone Confession Line and video images. The Phone Confession Line is based on anonymous callers ringing to confess on things they had done or thought like adultery, theft, murder or regrets. Thereafter anybody could call and listen to the confessions. Although making a confession was free, listening to a confession costs money. After Cohen got his hands on the confessions, he used them as an audio heartbeat to accompany video-images of every day life in New York City he had taken over the years. This installation is a portrait of the city with its dark secrets, hushed voices and nocturnal images. In this way Cohen tries to bring across an experience to the viewer that relies on absence, waiting and the effort to hear something in the dark.

This 50-minute release features promotional videos to the band's four singles from Out of Time ('Losing My Religion', 'Shiny Happy People', 'Near Wild Heaven' and 'Radio Song') in addition to videos to the album tracks 'Low', 'Belong', 'Half A World Away' and 'Country Feedback'; an acoustic performance of 'Losing My Religion' from The Late Show; and a live acoustic performance of 'Love Is All Around' from MTV Unplugged. Also included is 'Endgame', an instrumental track, played over the feature's credits; and several avant-garde clips, ranging from ten seconds to one minute, playing in between each song. This incidental footage was directed by Michael Stipe.

Drink Deep is a lyrical vision of friendship, hidden secrets, and desires. Cohen uses several types of film image to add texture to the layered composition. Beautiful shades of grey, silver, black and blue echo the water, reminiscent of early photography and silverprints. Cohen says, "The piece was constructed primarily from footage I’d shot of skinnydippers at swimming holes in Georgia and rural Pennsylvania. It’s about water and memory and stories just submerged. It is also, in part, a response to thinking about censorship. I would say that Drink Deep is both unabashedly and deceptively romantic. Surface, flow, and undertow. What looks like paradise is always paradise lost."

In his New York City landscape, Cohen finds inspiration in disturbance. Looking to life for rhythm and to architecture for state of mind, he locates simple mysteries. Just Hold Still is comprised of an interconnected series of short works and collaborations that explore the gray area between documentary, narrative, and experimental genres.

A personal, poetic approach to narrative, originally shot on 8mm film and mastered to ¾” video. Created in collaboration with Gabriel Cohen

A personal, poetic approach to narrative, originally shot on 8mm film and mastered to ¾” video. Created in collaboration with Gabriel Cohen

Collaboration with Fugazi

The memory of a person, or the memory of a place (Rhys Graham).

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.

A history of New York City from Prehistoric times through the Space Age, composed entirely from documentary street footage.

Brad Whitewood Jr. lives in rural Pennsylvania and has few prospects. Against his mother's wishes, he seeks out his estranged father, the head of a gang of thieves in a nearby town. Though his new girlfriend supports his criminal ambitions, Brad Jr. soon learns that his father is a dangerous man. Inspired by the real events that led to the end of the Johnston Gang, who operated in the northeastern United States in the 1970s.