Jem Cohen Movies

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

Commissioned by Renew Media to celebrate 20th Anniversary of Media Arts Fellowships

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...

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...

Jem Cohen directs this video for the post-rock song “Opened Ending” by Jessica Moss.

A short musical film

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

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 observational portrait of London’s Essex Street, and the inhabitants who work the shops and throng the pavement there (Julie Murray).

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...

"In films shot on 16mm and Super 8 over many years, now edited digitally, I reflect on my many visits to the homes of Robert and June in a...

Sketches for Late City Final (Jem Cohen, Peter Hutton, Jeff Preiss, Adam Grossman Cohen, co-produced by Fred Riedel, c. 1991)

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

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

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,...

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

An unorthodox concert film of the Holland-based band, the Ex, playing in New York. Intercut with city footage and documentation of anti-war,...

A portrait of Catania, Sicily. Includes the ocean at 5 a.m., the fish market, the distributor of pornographic films, the woodworker, the elephant...