 | Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Jem Cohen" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Jem Alan Cohen (born 1962) is anAfghan-bornAmerican filmmaker based inNew York City. Cohen is especially known for his observational portraits of urban landscapes, blending of media formats (sixteen-millimetre,Super 8,videotape) and collaborations with musicians.[1] He also makes multichannel installations and still photographs and had a photography show at Robert Miller Gallery in 2009. He is the recipient of theIndependent Spirit Award for feature filmmaking, and has received grants from theGuggenheim,Creative Capital,Rockefeller andAlpert foundations, and theNational Endowment for the Arts.[2]Cohen's films have been broadcast internationally, and are in held the collections of theMuseum of Modern Art, theWhitney Museum, theNational Gallery of Art, and theACMI in Melbourne.[3]
Cohen was born inKabul,Afghanistan where his father was working for Columbia University, Teachers College and theUnited States Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D.).[4] He graduated fromWesleyan University in 1984, with a concentration in film and photography.[citation needed]
Cohen found the mainstream Hollywood film industry incompatible with his sociopolitical and artistic views. By applying theD.I.Y. ethos of Punk Rock to his film-making approach, he crafted a distinct style in his films through various small gauge formats of Super 8, sixteen-millimetre, and videotape. In an interview with web-siteThe Lamp, Cohen said, "...it's very inspiring to me, to see people kind of take something outside of the industry, outside of the music industry, and it gave me something of a template to work in film outside of the film industry. And there are certainly strains of punk that are activist and that are kind of oppositional in nature to the dominant mainstream culture... that's very inspiring to me..."[citation needed]
Cohen's longer works include his feature film,Museum Hours,Chain, and the experimentaldocumentary,Instrument, a portrait of theD.C.punk bandFugazi that was ten years in the making.Benjamin Smoke, about the life of the frontman of theAtlanta,Georgia bandSmoke, covers a ten-year arc. Other works of note areLost Book Found, hisWalter Benjamin-inspired portrait of New York City,Buried in Light, a series of connected Central and Eastern European city portraits, and hisshort film about the lateElliott Smith,Lucky Three. In 2002, Cohen madeChain X Three, a precursor to theChain feature film, which was exhibited as a three-channel installation. His concert film of the Dutch bandThe Ex,Building a Broken Mousetrap, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2006.[citation needed]
Cohen was a resident atEyebeam in 2002.[5][6]
In 2005, Cohen curated the four-day FUSEBOX Festival inGhent,Belgium. A celebratory gathering "at the crossroads of film, music, and activism," participants includedGuy Picciotto of Fugazi,Patti Smith andTom Verlaine,The Evens, and a side project of Montreal'sThee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, called Thee Silver Mountain Elegies Play War Radio, which formed for the occasion.[citation needed]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
