Short Attention Span Cinema: Newsreels — Reports from Occupy Wall Street by Jem Cohen
Wednesday, October 26 - Thursday, December 1, 2011
From acclaimed filmmaker Jem Cohen (Chain) comes a series of brand-new nonfiction shorts, snapshots of the ongoing protest movement in real time — filmed only days ago. Four shorts will screen — one per week — for the next month. A fifth film will premiere at DOC NYC’s Spotlight Gala on November 8, before the screening of THE ISLAND PRESIDENT and a post-film discussion with ISLAND’s director Jon Shenk and filmmaker-author-activist Michael Moore.
“Some of my films are made over spans as long as ten years, but others are done in immediate, visceral response to unfolding events,” notes Jem Cohen. “In regards to Occupy Wall Street, when friends asked me where the newsreels were, I decided to plunge in and make some myself. We knew there’d eventually be many documentaries made about the phenomenon and that there were already short advocacy pieces in support of the movement (as well as YouTube slams against it). My own interest lay elsewhere: in a kind of reporting based on direct observation that expresses solidarity without propaganda, while leaving room for experimentation and lyricism.”