Jem Cohen Movies

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...

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe...

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...

An associative collection of visual impressions across fifteen chapters: a seagull in Porto, political posters in New York, an abstract painting in...

In Chain, actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into a monolithic superlandscape that shapes and circumscribes...

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

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...

An homage to Walter Benjamin and other time-traveling artists and expatriates that have inspired me, especially Chris Marker. Benjamin, fleeing from...

Described as "a cross between a video and a documentary, but actually being neither of the two," singer/songwriter Elliott Smith plays three acoustic...

Benjamin Smoke is the highly acclaimed documentary by directors Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen on legendary underground musician Benjamin Smoke. Benjamin...

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...

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...

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...

Jem Cohen directs a music video for the post-rock song “Aerie” by drummer Jim White (of Dirty Three) and guitarist Marisa Anderson.

"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...

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

A portrait of Luce Vigo, film critic, educator, and the daughter of pivotal French filmmaker Jean Vigo. Commissioned by the Spanish documentary...

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

This surreal art-movie/live-performance hybrid is comprised of New York filmmaker Jem Cohen's original 16mm and DV movie footage combined with...

A portrait of an unnamed city in Italy. Sidestepping the tourist attractions that make the city famous, the film/video posits an almost-imaginary...