Jay Rosenblatt
A mind-boggling "coincidence" leads the filmmaker to track down his fifth grade class – and fifth grade teacher – to examine their memory of and complicity in a bullying incident fifty years ago.
The Kodachrome elegies is a short documentary about a lost film stock, the loss of innocence and the end of an era.
An unscientific and comedic study of what happens when two people are hypnotized leading into an exhilarating journey into the unconscious mind (the repository for fears, desires, aggression, dreams) where all the images, sounds and music are from found footage.
Three women are in enclosed psychological zones that function as both refuge and jail.
INQUIRE WITHIN is a hypnotic, apocalyptic examination of false choices, double binds, vulnerability and faith.
The Darkness of Day is a haunting meditation on suicide. It is comprised entirely of found 16mm footage that had been discarded. The sadness, the isolation, and the desire to escape are recorded on film in various contexts. Voice-over readings from the journal kept by a brother of the filmmaker’s friend who committed suicide in 1990 intermix with a range of compelling stories, from the poignant double suicide of an elderly American couple to a Japanese teenager who jumped into a volcano, spawning over a thousand imitations. While this is a serious exploration of a cultural taboo, its lyrical qualities invite the viewer to approach the subject with understanding and compassion.
A father takes us through one year of trying to teach a preschooler how to make a film.
When Stacey Ross unexpectedly died in 2007, her friends contacted filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt to complete a project she had only just begun. The result is FOUR QUESTIONS FOR A RABBI, a film that touches upon issues of identity, persecution and mortality.
Newsreels, commercials, and home movies are used to study the life and influence of Anita Bryant.
The death of my seven-year-old brother when I was nine remains a painful and haunting memory. My parents did not know how to cope with the loss of their child and the entire family experienced indescribable pain. Phantom Limb uses this personal story as a point of departure. Whether it is a loss through death or divorce, the stages of grieving are the same. Individuals often go through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, ultimately, some kind of acceptance, in order to heal. The film is loosely structured according to these stages. Interspersed throughout this poetic documentary are interviews with a cemetery owner, a phantom limb patient and an author of a book about evidence for life after death. Phantom Limb reminds viewers that while grief is painful and isolating, it is a reminder to each of us that life is impermanent. - Jay Rosenblatt
A film about fatherhood and the bond between a father and his infant daughter. The filmmaker documents the first eighteen months of the child’s life, showing the progression from newborn to infant to toddler.
An off-screen narrator remembers a time he was five years old, walking to school in a heavy rain, wearing a yellow slicker and cap. He relates to us that a boy he'd never seen before ran up to him and said that it was raining worms. Our lad of five is on the cusp between believing anything he hears and entering the age of reason. He asks for proof. He holds out his hand.
Exploring imagination, memories, dreams, or past lives of Pinky the cat.
King of the Jews is a film about anti-Semitism and transcendence. Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950's educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism.
Human Remains is a haunting documentary which illustrates the banality of evil by creating intimate portraits of five of the 20th century's most reviled dictators. The film unveils the personal lives of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco and Mao Tse Tung. We learn the private and mundane details of their everyday lives -- their favorite foods, films, habits and sexual preferences. There is no mention of their public lives or of their place in history. The intentional omission of the horrors for which these men were responsible hovers over the film.
Period Piece is a 30 min. documentary about menarche--a girl's first menstrual period--which is a fundamental experience in every woman's life, yet one that is rarely celebrated. Women of different ages (8-84) and multi-cultural backgrounds tell their menarchal stories.
A haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness.
A woman is reduced to tears. She bends over backwards trying to be a good wife and mother. Her head is cut off from her heart. A doctor picks her brain. A boy inherits his mother's depression. Short of Breath is a haunting, emotional collage about birth, death, sex and suicide. It's like a punch in the stomach.
A haunting and humorous film about romantic relationships and insects.
An imagined therapy session that obliquely suggests the seeds of "Trump" and the subsequent fear and anxiety he evokes.
A 'dog-u-mentary' about birth, loss and near death. The film follows three adults and a dog named Lola through Lola's pregnancy, the birth of her puppies, and the loss of each puppy to their new owners. Often funny and ultimately sad, the piece explores our love and attachments to dogs and our projections onto animals.
Mary Shelley’s writing combines with Boris Karloff’s performance to re-work the myth of Frankenstein. In five minutes the “monster” moves through the very human journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance.
