Jem Cohen

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.

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.

The band Fugazi is documented over a period of more than ten years (1987-1998) through performance footage and interviews with the band and their fans. Director Jem 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.

Since 1995, the Viennale has invited renowned directors to create short, one-minute films as personal contributions to the festival. Ranging from home movies to political essays, musical sketches to abstract studies, these “little films” form a unique anthology of cinematic moments. 20 Little Films collects a selection of these works, premiering together for the Viennale’s 50th anniversary at the Locarno Film Festival.

Karl, a 70-year-old Austrian astronomer, is at a crossroads in life and work. After a conference in Greece, he decides not to return home and heads for a small island in hopes of finding a sky dark enough to reconnect with the stars.

A security guard working at an art museum in Vienna crosses paths with a Canadian woman in town to visit her ailing cousin.

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.)

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."

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.

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.

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.

A short musical film

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.

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.

Scenes from the life of a quiet man and a smart woman. They carry the celebrated surnames Frank and Leaf, both of which were crucial to the 20th century North American art scene, but here they are just Robert and June. Jem Cohen’s camera brims with tenderness for his beloved friends in their late years, searching for their presence in the calming topography of Mabou, Nova Scotia, or the urban decay of New York’s Bleecker Street. Drifting, mutating textures and formats, breathing along with changing landscapes. An exercise in spending time with the world. (Viennale)

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.

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.

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.

All of the album's songs were made into music videos by various filmmakers, such as the Quay Brothers, Garine Torossian, Grant Gee, and Guy Maddin.

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