CNYPG welcomes Jem Cohen
with his film CHAIN

March 28 - April 5, 2006

Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, Tuesday, March 28

SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton, NY, Wednesday, March 29

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY, Thursday, March 30

Hallwalls & Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, NY, Friday, March 31

Cornell Cinema, Ithaca, NY, Saturday, April 1

SUNY Potsdam, Cinema 10, Potsdam, NY, Monday, April 3

Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, Wednesday, April 5

The Central New York Programmers Group is pleased to host Jem Cohen on a tour of seven New York venues.
Cohen will present his film CHAIN.

As regional character disappears and corporate culture homogenizes our surroundings, it's increasingly hard to tell where you are. In Chain, actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into a monolithic "superlandscape" that shapes and circumscribes the lives of two women. One is a businesswoman researching the international theme park industry for her home company. The other is a young drifter, illegally living and working on the fringes of a shopping mall. Shot over seven years, primarily in 16mm, in hundreds of locations, ranging from Florida, Dallas, and New Jersey, to Berlin, Paris, and Melbourne, "Jem Cohen's Chain, updating The Arcades Project as a Chris Marker travelogue, undertakes a global tour of in-between spaces that could be anywhere (and are everywhere). (Village Voice) "This is vital, boundary-pushing film making....an uncategorizable hybrid of social critique, poetic essay and haunted travelogue." (London Daily Telegraph)
2005, color, 1 hour 39 minutes, USA

Cohen collects street footage, portraits, and sounds, and the work he has made “defies easy categorization, thriving on the collision between documentary, narrative, and experimental approaches. Some of the projects are personal/political city portraits made on travels around the globe. Many center around daily life and ephemeral moments: things seen out of the corner of the eye and pulled into the center.” (Video Data Bank) He has also made two feature-length documentaries: Instrument (with and about Fugazi) and Benjamin Smoke (co-directed by Peter Sillen). He has worked with musicians including Sparklehorse, Blonde Redhead, R.E.M., Elliott Smith, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Miracle Legion, Jonathan Richman, Patti Smith, Vic Chesnutt, Stephen Vitiello, and Gil Shaham with the Orpheus Orchestra.