In the brisk, 43-minute anthology film, Cinema-19, a group of experimental filmmakers respond to the coronavirus pandemic with diverse and imaginative results. The films are all 190 seconds long and, say the curator/organizers, filmmakers Usama Alshaibi and Adam Sekuler, “do not attempt to summarize the pandemic, but instead focus on the personal, the political, the sensual, the distant, the abstract, and the absurd.” Highlights include Courtney Stephen‘s poetic essay film on irises, hundreds of which she encountered on walks in the five-mile radius she and her mother were confined to during quarantine. (“This is a trick,” she says in voiceover. […]

I’ve given up explaining that Buffalo Juggalos isn’t a documentary. I come from a narrative background but I should make clear that Buffalo Juggalos is not really a narrative film either. Three years ago I decided Buffalo Juggalos would be a 30-minute film, shot on video, composed of thirty shots, each one minute long. The film would be a series of scenes featuring real Juggalos. There would be no interviews or music; if there was dialogue, it would have absolutely nothing to do with being a Juggalo. Even though there are narrative elements throughout, they have been subjugated by the […]