This programme is designed to complement the screening of Chain. City Stories offers a rare good chance to see two of Jem Cohen’s earlier films Blood Orange Sky and Lost Book Found which reveal Cohen’s lightness of touch unravelling the complexity and layering of the city landscape.
Blood Orange Sky
Dir: Jem Cohen | US| 1999| 26 mins
A portrait of Catania, Sicily, Blood Orange Sky reveals the ocean at 5am, the fish market, the distributor of pornographic films, the woodworker, the elephant statue, the housing projects and a young girl in an orange sweater. Catania is a large and remarkable city without many tourists or tourist attractions. Its people live in the shadow of Mount Aetna, an active volcano. The original soundtrack music was composed for the project by Mark Linkous of the band Sparklehorse. The project also contains music made by local Catania musicians.
Lost Book Found
Dir: Jem Cohen | US | 1996 | 37 mins
Lost Book Found organises documentary street footage into a meditation on city life. Over five years’ worth of collected images are used to evoke a mysterious notebook filled with obsessive listings of places, objects and incidents. These listings serve as the key to a hidden city. It is a city of unconsidered geographies and layered artifacts – the relics of low-level capitalism and the debris of countless forgotten narratives. The project was influenced by the work of Walter Benjamin as well as Cohen’s first job, selling Italian ices on Canal Street.