Renga
“Renga is a linked-verse form of Japanese poetry that, though still practiced today, reached its peak between the 13th and 16th centuries. It is characterized by being a group composition, typically in the presence of judges and an audience, with poets rapidly contributing stanzas such that each new stanza addresses only the previous stanza; there is no overarching plot development, and the overall structure is a chain, not a conventional, linear narrative… In 1989, I had the great privilege to be involved in a film renga that was produced in the graduate film seminar led by Nathaniel Dorsky at the San Francisco Art Institute.” —Eric Theise
Laura Poitras
Nathaniel Dorsky
Geoffrey Luck
Eric Theise
Erik Anderson
Paul Baker
Kurt Easterwood
Bud Lassiter
Geoffrey Luck
Alan Mukamal
Dena Penniston
Kim Tempest
Also Directed by Laura Poitras
Capturing the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with unprecedented access, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle in a documentary portrait of power, betrayal, truth and sacrifice.
Following the life of artist Nan Goldin and the downfall of the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical dynasty who was greatly responsible for the opioid epidemic's unfathomable death toll.
Documentary of the effects of migration of white yuppie gays/lesbians into neighborhoods dominated by minorities. Focuses on disruptive effects to elderly residents.
This is the second channel of Laura Poitras’s double video installation. It is comprised of United States military footage of interrogations, conducted shortly after 9/11, with two U.S. prisoners in Afghanistan, one of whom, Salim Hamdan, is the subject of Poitras’s feature documentary THE OATH.
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.
Filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans' personal data.
The prologue to a trilogy of films about 9/11 America. Composed of images filmed at Ground Zero in September 2001, two weeks after the 9/11 attacks. The soundtrack is composed of the National Anthem recorded in October 2001 at the Yankees' World Series Game 4 in New York. It is a split screen revision from a double-projection installation.
The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows. The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
A visual study of the investigation by Forensic Architecture into the Israeli cyberweapons manufacturer NSO Group and the use of its Pegasus malware to target journalists and human rights defenders worldwide.
Tells the story of two men, Abu Jandal and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, whose fateful encounter in 1996 set them on a course of events that led them to Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Also Directed by Nathaniel Dorsky
"February was photographed during the first weeks of early spring in San Francisco. For me there is a haunted sense of restlessness in its form, some desire for a new freedom, a fresh sense of cinema. It feels to me to be the conclusion of an exploration that began with Triste, some 20 films earlier. What will follow, I do not know." - Nathaniel Dorsky
An aubade is a poem or morning song evoking the first rays of the sun at daybreak. Often, it includes the atmosphere of lovers parting. This film is my first venture into shooting in color negative after having spent a lifetime shooting Kodachrome. In some sense, it is a new beginning for me. -Nathaniel Dorsky
The Kodachrome Dailies consist of all the Kodachrome footage chosen to be worked with to make the film Song and Solitude during years 2005 and 2006. During that period I still had the great privilege to be shooting Kodachrome. My method for editing was to first select the footage I wanted to use from the original camera rolls and then make an internegative and work print of that selected material to work with in the editing. (In an earlier period, I did not have to first make an internegative, but could more simply make a work print directly off the camera original, but Kodak cancelled the reversal work print film stock.)
"Seven and a half weeks ago, I had open heart surgery...In the three weeks to go before the operation, I bought 21 rolls of film and said 'I'm going to shoot a roll of film every day until I go to the hospital.' ... This film is shot with the overall feeling for me, personally, that it's elegiac, it's like saying goodbye to the world."
Autumn, photographed during the last months of the drought year, 2015, is a stately, but intimate, seasonal tome, a celebration of the poignancy and mystery of our later years. – Nathaniel Dorsky
Conceived and photographed with the loving collaboration of Susan Vigil during the last year of her life, Song and Solitude is balanced more toward an expression of inner landscape, or what it feels like to be, rather than an exploration of the external visual world as such.
Like a memory already gone, this place of life.—Nathaniel Dorsky
Light in the gardens of the San Francisco Arboretum, photographed in early spring. Elohim are divine beings, the energy of light as creation.
“The title Apricity refers to the warmth of the sun in winter. It is an homage to the writer Jane (Brakhage) Wodening. In speaking to her I mused, ‘perhaps your age is the winter and you are the warmth of the sun.’” –Nathaniel Dorsky
"Temple Sleep was photographed and edited during the initial Virus lockdown. The fly casting pools in Golden Gate Park became a mind healing place for me, a calming space of sacredness, tempered by the fear of the on-coming unknown. A place of feminine power" - N.D.
Also Directed by Geoffrey Luck
The incredible, true-life story of a baby elephant born into a rescue camp in the wilderness of Botswana. When she's suddenly orphaned at one month of age, it's up to the men who look after her herd to save her life.
Naledi tells the incredible story of a baby elephant who was born into a rescue camp in the wilderness of Botswana. When she is suddenly orphaned at one-month-old, it is up to the keepers who look after the herd to keep her alive. This one elephant's tale remains both intimate and epic, a journey of tragedy and triumph, because when her entire species faces extinction, one life means everything.
Also Directed by Eric Theise
Twenty-plus former students, colleagues, and admirers of Peter Hutton answered an invitation to shoot A Roll For Peter. The parameters were simple: shoot a single 100 feet roll of black and white 16mm film. They were then strung together with black film separating the rolls, as Peter often separated the single shots in his films.It is a series of pieces that speak to Peter’s strong contemplative aesthetic ethos. Each filmmaker has 2 and half minutes of screen time to commune with Peter’s memory, and the collected rolls will become more than the sum of their parts.
Also Directed by Kim Tempest
An animated love poem.