Jem Cohen Movies

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

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

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...

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

An excerpt from a portrait of Cape Breton shot over 10 years. Last presented in New York as a live show in BAM’s 2013 Next Wave series,...

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

The scene: the industrial neighborhood of Gowanus, Brooklyn. The players: wind, a flooded road, passersby, and birds... The time: shortly before...

"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...

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

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...

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

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

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...

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...

A meditation on history, memory, and change in Central and Eastern Europe, Buried in Light is a non-narrative journey, a cinematic collage....

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...

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...

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