James N. Kienitz Wilkins
2021
Public Hearing
James N. Kienitz Wilkins
Public Hearing is the verbatim re-performance of a rural American town meeting from a transcript downloaded as publicly available information. Shot entirely in cinematic close-up on black-and-white 16mm film, a cast of actors and non-actors read between the lines in an ironic debate over the replacement of an existing Wal-Mart with a super Wal-Mart.
Public Hearing
Special Features
James N. Kienitz Wilkins
Mauricio Arango, Mike Crane
Special Features is an apparent interview with three highlights. Presented as a lo-fi fragment from a forgotten video production, an interviewee interacts with an interviewer, recounting a special experience at once unique and shared.
Special Features
This Action Lies
James N. Kienitz Wilkins
James N. Kienitz Wilkins
This Action Lies is a movie about the limits of observation, about staring very hard at something while listening to something else. It is a paranoid polyphonic apology of a simple act: offering three perspectives of an object that may not exist in a room that cannot exist, while at the mercy of a mistrustful monologue. In other words, a defense of cinema. This project expands ideas introduced in one of Kienitz Wilkins’ previous films, Indefinite Pitch (2016), and is similarly voice-driven, using an extended monologue to analyze a common and underappreciated commercial product, elevating it to the status of an almost Platonic form.
This Action Lies
The Republic
James N. Kienitz Wilkins
Nour Mobarak, Anthony Aroya
An epic story about a group of American libertarians told in a unique manner, as both an audio performance and an experimental film. The piece features an ensemble cast of 15 actors, each individually recorded and then edited together sentence-by-sentence to create a spoken word experience that activates the power of the mind’s eye. As the drama unfolds, the image slowly transitions from pure black to blinding white throughout the duration of the film.
The Republic
Best Year Ever
James N. Kienitz Wilkins
In the children’s book Best Busy Year Ever by Richard Scarry, the hustle and bustle of a city is captured through colorful illustrations. Using his performative storytelling narration, Wilkins questions contemporary social issues with understated ironic wit.
Best Year Ever
Desert of the Real
Christian Von Borries
Valeria Lukyanova, James N. Kienitz Wilkins
Composer and filmmaker Christian von Borries' new film Desert of the real visits these contemporary wastelands. In a rich collage of acted scenes and documentary footage, he extends the metaphor of the wasteland to today's medial reality. At the heart of so many holographic simulations and replicas, in a world custom-made for selfie and instagram tweets, he reveals emptiness and potential violence. (David Riff) The only way to trace the distinction between the semblance and the Real is, precisely, to STAGE it in a fake spectacle.
Desert of the Real
