If you're in New York I highly recommend you check out the final night of what has been a great series at the IFC Center: Movie Night with Jem Cohen. Tonight the program is Shorts, Rarities and Things to Come, and it's described like this:

Unseen films old and new, excerpts from recent collaborations and a glimpse at the methods behind the madness.

The final evening in the IFC Center’s “Movie Nights With Jem Cohen” series offers rare films old and new, excerpts from recent collaborations and a glimpse at the methods behind the madness! To be shown: GLUE MAN, an early short collaboration with FUGAZI, as well as films made for Cohen’s frequent live performances with musicians like the Boxhead Ensemble, and a preview of CHANCE MEXICO CITY, Cohen’s current project with Picciotto, T.Griffin, DJ Rupture and Andy Moor.

Also showing: BRICK LANE, a silent piece on children at an old British flea market; NIGHT SCENE NEW YORK, a new work shot in NYC’s Chinatown; the premiere of VIC CHESNUTT: CHAIN, featuring the musician and his band in the studio cutting a track for his new album—a song inspired by Cohen’s own movie; and more.

I've seen just a few of these shorts, and the ones I've watched are models of conceptual precision. Of course, Cohen will be there answering questions. The previous nights in the series sold out, so if you want to be assured of a seat, click here.

Also, here's a short piece in Artforum on Cohen's work. An excerpt:

The Brooklyn-based filmmaker’s meandering camera is not bound by traditional paths; rather, it is set in motion by rumbling trains, buses, and Cohen’s wanderings on foot in New York and abroad. Training his lens on the underpinnings of a place—its buildings, roads, and waterways—Cohen registers the majestic, fleeting music of its daily life: a Chinatown shopkeeper tending his stall, the floating detritus of a spirited parade. He assembles most of his films from an ongoing archive of window recordings and street footage, a practice that, post-9/11, has prompted his role as community advocate. He rallied, for instance, against mayoral initiatives in 2007 to restrict street photography and continues to pass out flyers today asserting the rights of New York City’s filmmakers and photographers.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/03/2009 04:19:00 PM

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