“The films of Nathaniel Dorsky blend a beauteous celebration of the sensual world with a deep sense of introspection and solitude. They are occasions for reflection and meditation, on light, landscape, time and the motions of consciousness. Their luminous photography emphasizes the elemental frisson between solidity and luminosity, between spirit and matter, while his uniquely developed montage permits a fluid and flowing experience of time. Dorsky’s films reveal the mystery behind everyday existence, providing intimations of eternity.”—Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque.

In Devotional Cinema, Dorsky moves through meditations on image-moments in works by key filmmakers (Carl Theodor Dreyer, Yasujiro Ozu, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Roberto Rossellini), and arrives at the heart of what constitutes a devotional practice.

Artists, scholars, filmmakers, and writers revisit the films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Jean-Marie Straub (b. 1933) and Danièle Huillet (1936–2006) met in Paris in 1954. Straub wanted to make a film about Johann Sebastian Bach, to which Huillet thought: “He’s planning to do far too much; he won’t manage it alone.” It was the beginning of a fifty-year collaboration, which brought about one of the most unconventional and controversial bodies of work in modern cinema. Tell it to the Stones presents variations from a prolonged re-encounter with Huillet and Straub’s work that was sparked by a three-month exhibition, complete cinema retrospective, workshops, and music performances in Berlin in the fall of 2017.

Contributing artists, scholars, filmmakers, and writers have revisited this collective experience in new texts, revised transcripts, conceptual essays, and visual montages. What happens during an encounter happens in between: between language and image, gestures and words, looks and everything unsaid. “To help us build the in-between,” is how Huillet once imagined a task for those who come to see their films. The present compendium revives these encounters and reveals the urgencies of how Straub and Huillet’s oeuvre matters today, perhaps more than ever.

A book produced in conjunction with Bauer Verlag’s eponymous series of screenings at the Studio/Cinema in Brooklyn. Bauer Verlag was established in 2012 in Frankfurt as an artist collective to publish text-based books by artists and friends.

With contributions from Nicholas Vargelis, Kerstin Stakemeier, Steve Beck, Lis Rhodes, Leslie Bauer, Érik Bullot, C.Vanaik, VUE Committee, Shirley Clarke, Hilary Harris, Giuliana Bruno, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Peter Larsen, Elissa Suh, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Storm de Hirsch, Mark Fisher, Bruce Baillie, Rachel Haidu, Kai Althoff, Jennifer Reeves, Karl Holmqvist, Eros in Le Wind, Marie Menken, Jonas Raam.

Produced the occasion of the screening of Tom Zubrycki’s unfinished documentary film on the history of the Australian labour movement, from the 1850’s up until the bicentenary of 1988. Originally sponsored by the Australian Council for Trade Unions, produced by Film Australia, and funded by the Australian Bicentennial Authority, the film was effectively censored when the ACTU rejected the film’s representation of union history.

With an excerpt from John Hughes’ manuscript for his essay Zubrycki’s Point: Amongst Equals, utilitarian film in the Australian labour movement, on the controversy surrounding the production of Amongst Equals.

Designed by Ziga Testen.

More information on the screenings can be found here.