Journalism

About Media

Anthony Ramos' astute deconstruction of television news focuses on his part in the media coverage of President Jimmy Carter's 1977 declaration of amnesty for Vietnam draft evaders. Ramos, who had served an 18-month prison sentence for draft evasion, was interviewed by news reporter Gabe Pressman, whose film crew meets Ramos' video crew in a confrontation between technologies and sensibilities. At the time, some broadcast television news crews still used 16mm film, although the expensive transition to ENG (electronic news gathering) systems had begun in 1974.

Jem Cohen

One Bright Day

While out shooting for a different project altogether, I encountered two sleeping men on a Manhattan street. A short time later, I was standing in front of Pennsylvania Train Station with the camera on a tripod, when one of the men suddenly reappeared. He stepped in front of my camera and began to speak, about his path in the U.S. military, from Panama to Afghanistan to Iraq, about his life. I decided to limit the piece to what I shot in that area in those few hours, with one key addition: the text from a classic children's rhyme.

–Jem Cohen

Ursula Biemann

Sahara Chronicle

Sahara Chronicle emcompasses an undefined number of short videos documenting the present sub-Saharan exodus towards Europe. Taking a close look at the modalities and logistics of the migration system in the Sahara, the project examines the politics of mobility, visibility and containment which lie at the heart of current global geopolitics. The material is gathered during three fieldtrips to major gates and nodes of the trans-Saharan network in Morocco, Mauritania and Niger where migratory intesity is bundled. No voice-over narrative strings these stories together.

Ursula Biemann

X-Mission

X-Mission explores the logic of the refugee camp as one of the oldest extra-territorial zones. Taking the Palestinian refugee camp as a case in point, the video engages with the different discourses - legal, symbolic, urban, historical - that give meaning to this exceptional space. According to international law, the Palestinian refugee represents indeed the exception within the exception. In the course of 60 years they had to build a civil life in the camps, fostering an intense microcosm with complex relations to homeland and diaspora.

Journalism

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