Robert Banks | |
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Born | Robert C. Banks, Jr. September 7, 1966 |
Occupation | Experimental filmmaker |
Robert C. Banks, Jr. (born September 7, 1966) is an American experimental filmmaker.
Banks attended the Cleveland School of the Arts and has taught film at Cuyahoga Community College, the Cleveland Institute of Art, [1] and Cleveland State University.
His best known work is the 1992 the mixed media film essay, X: The Baby Cinema, a 4.5 minute, 16 mm short film which chronicled the commercial appropriation of the image of Malcolm X. It was met with disdain from director Spike Lee who made the biopic that same year. [2]
The 1994 feature documentary film, You Can't Get a Piece of Mind explores the world of Cleveland musician and Vietnam veteran, Dan "Supie T" Theman.
Banks has had his films shown at the Sundance Film Festival, [3] was named Filmmaker of the Year at the Midwest Filmmakers Conference, and in 2000, he was the honored guest filmmaker in London at the BBC British Short Film Festival.
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing.
Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Established in 1963, it is the fourth-oldest film festival in North America and the oldest experimental film festival. It has become one of the premier film festivals for independent and, especially, experimental filmmakers to showcase their work. The Ann Arbor Film Festival attracts over 3,000 entries from filmmakers in more than 60 countries, and distributes over $20,000 in cash awards. As an early example of the traveling festival concept beginning in 1964, each year the Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour presents a collection of short films at more than 30 art house theaters, universities, galleries and cinematheques throughout the world.
Karamu House in the Fairfax neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, United States, is the oldest producing Black Theatre in the United States opening in 1915. Many of Langston Hughes's plays were developed and premiered at the theater.
Jack Sargeant is a British writer specialising in cult film, underground film, and independent film, as well as subcultures, true crime, and other aspects of the unusual. In addition he is a film programmer, curator, academic and photographer. He has appeared in underground films and performances. He currently lives in Australia.
Jon Moritsugu is an American cult-underground filmmaker and musician. His movies are satiric, protopunk deconstructions of popular genres and formats with scabrous and pointedly garish results. The New York Times describes them as "funny, anarchic, provocative and exhilarating". Influenced by the nihilism of Jean-Luc Godard and Guy Debord, Moritsugu's films are often defined by their "lo-fi" aesthetic and were initially shot on 16mm film for a gritty, visceral quality. He states that he often "pay(s) less attention to narrative flow and storyline and put(s) more emphasis on sight, sound and spectacle" to create a movie that is "like a live punk/hardcore show." The works themselves are often absurdist comedies that feature actress, co-writer, stylist, and wife, Amy Davis. Perhaps best known for his cult film Mod Fuck Explosion, Moritsugu's films have been screened at Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Rotterdam, Venice, USA Film Festival, New York Underground, Chicago Underground, MoMA, Guggenheim, Whitney and numerous other festivals and museums. In 2001 he received the Moving Image award from Creative Capital.
The Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF) is an annual nonprofit international festival dedicated to the exhibition of underground and avant-garde cinema, video, and performance.The festival offers an opportunity for independent artists who are frequently overlooked by other conventional, market-driven film festivals to showcase and be recognized for their work though jury and audience awards. In addition to screenings, the festival also hosts events to build community amoungst the audience. Founded in 1993, the festival is widely regarded as the longest running festival of its kind.
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is an experimental filmmaker, artist and author. She is Willa Cather Professor Emerita in Film Studies. Her work has focused on gender, race, ecofeminism, queer sexuality, eco-theory, and class studies. From 1999 through the end of 2014, she was co-editor along with Wheeler Winston Dixon of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. In 2016, she was named Willa Cather Endowed Professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and took early retirement in 2020.
Canyon Cinema is an American nonprofit organization for distributing independent, avant-garde, and artist-made films. After starting in the 1960s as an exhibition program, it grew to include a nationwide newsletter and a distribution cooperative. Its exhibition activities were split off to form the San Francisco Cinematheque.
Robert Marion Stewart, known as Bhob Stewart was an American writer, editor, cartoonist, filmmaker, and active fan who contributed to a variety of publications over a span of five decades. His articles and reviews appeared in TV Guide, Publishers Weekly, and other publications, along with online contributions to Allmovie, the Collecting Channel, and other sites. In 1980, he became the regular film columnist for Heavy Metal.
The Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival (LUFF) is a film festival and music festival devoted to underground film and music. It is held each year in Lausanne, Switzerland. The festival is organized by a non-profit organization. The organization's goals are to promote independent artistic projects and creations and to make those projects accessible to a large public. The primary goal of the Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival is to present films and music that largely exist outside the mainstream and profit driven production and distribution circuits. The cinematic section presents mainly films with an experimental character and/or films that challenge the spectator's viewing habits. Films are screened during the day and evening, followed by live music events featuring underground artists at night. Money prizes are awarded by the festival for the films selected in the international competition, in order to support the filmmakers in creating their art. The musical program of the festival proposes sonar experimentations of all kind.
Peggy Ahwesh is an American experimental filmmaker and video artist. She received her B.F.A. at Antioch College. A bricoleur who has created both narrative works and documentaries, some projects are scripted and others incorporate improvised performance. She makes use of sync sound, found footage, digital animation, and Pixelvision video. Her work is primarily an investigation of cultural identity and the role of the subject in various genres. Her interests include genre; women, sexuality and feminism; reenactment; and artists' books. Her works have been shown worldwide, including in San Francisco, New York, Barcelona, London, Toronto, Rotterdam, and Créteil, France. Starting in 1990, she has taught at Bard College as a Professor of Film and Electronic Arts. Her teaching interests include: experimental media, history of the non-fiction film, and women in film.
San Francisco Cinematheque is a San Francisco-based film society for artist-made cinema. It was created in 1961 by a group of filmmakers, including Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand. This screening program grew into Canyon Cinema before being split off into a sister organization, originally named the Foundation for Art in Cinema, during the 1970s.
Stephen Dwoskin was a major avant-garde filmmaker whose work was closely connected to the 'gaze theory' associated with Laura Mulvey; a significant disabled filmmaker – though he rejected being framed as such – and an activist for an alternative film culture, through such organizations as the London Film-Makers' Co-op and The Other Cinema. His films are held by the BFI and distributed by LUX. His archive is held at The University of Reading.
Bill Brand is an experimental film and video artist, educator, activist and film preservationist.
Nathan Truesdell is an Academy Award nominated independent filmmaker. He is best known for his work on the documentary films Balloonfest, Ascension, and The Water Slide.
Tessa Hughes-Freeland is a British-born experimental film maker, writer living in New York City. Her films have screened internationally in North America, Europe and Australia and in prominent museums and galleries, including the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; and the KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin. She has collaborated on live multi-media projects with musicians like John Zorn and J. G. Thirlwell. She and Ela Troyano co-founded the New York Film Festival Downtown in 1984 and served as its co-directors until 1990. Hughes-Freeland later served as President of the Board of Directors of the Film-Makers Co-Operative in New York City from 1998-2001. She has published articles in numerous books, including “Naked Lens: Beat Cinema” and “No Focus: Punk Film,” and in periodicals including PAPER Magazine, Filmmaker magazine, GQ, the East Village Eye, and Film Threat.
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