James N. Kienitz Wilkins

Recently added

Still Film
7

Still Film

Mar 06, 2023
An ode to movie culture and its beguiling hold on our imagination, modeled on an actual legal deposition, and accompanied by a procession of 35mm publicity stills from studio press kits.
Documentary
Desert of the Real
1

Desert of the Real

Aug 14, 2017
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.
Documentary
Invention
1

Invention

Aug 11, 2024
In the aftermath of a conspiracy-minded father’s sudden death, his daughter inherits his patent for an experimental healing device. Featuring archives from Callie Hernandez's late father, Invention explores the process of grieving a complicated parent, and the filmmaking itself becomes a part of the process.
Drama
Special Features
1

Special Features

Nov 14, 2014
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.
Documentary
This Action Lies
1

This Action Lies

Sep 06, 2019
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.
Public Hearing
6.7

Public Hearing

Dec 05, 2012
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.
LEWISTON
10

LEWISTON

Sep 01, 2002
The movie arose out of our sparetime as teenagers with fresh driver’s licenses and cobbled-together camera gear, wandering around a tired and honestly pretty grim post-industrial mill community, reinforced with after-hours access to the darkroom at the Sun Journal (where Aaron’s dad was the visuals editor), and some half-formed education in the techniques of Robert Frank, Frederick Wiseman, Dogme 95, Italian neorealism, pre-Obama Shepard Fairey, plus whatever culture pushed its way through the creaky pipes of low-bandwidth dial-up internet, or was smuggled up the actual superhighway of I-95 from Boston and eventually New York, or mailed first class via United States Postal Service from a burgeoning Netflix in those classic matte red envelopes, as valuable and rare as cash sent from China. [...] Somehow we negotiated access to a Canon XL1 3-CCD MiniDV camera and shotgun mic from the local public access station, in exchange for taping the high school graduation we didn’t participate in.
Documentary
Special Features
1

Special Features

Nov 14, 2014
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.
Documentary
Still Film
7

Still Film

Mar 06, 2023
An ode to movie culture and its beguiling hold on our imagination, modeled on an actual legal deposition, and accompanied by a procession of 35mm publicity stills from studio press kits.
Documentary
Still Film
7

Still Film

Mar 06, 2023
An ode to movie culture and its beguiling hold on our imagination, modeled on an actual legal deposition, and accompanied by a procession of 35mm publicity stills from studio press kits.
Documentary
Indefinite Pitch
5.7

Indefinite Pitch

Aug 04, 2016
A procession of black-and-silvery-white stills of New England’s Androscoggin River unspools alongside an anxious monologue on movies, memory, and minor history.
Common Carrier
1

Common Carrier

Mar 22, 2017
In this kaleidoscopic portrait, a screenwriter, an actor, an urban shaman, and the director himself contend with the everyday annoyances that fill the life of an artist.
Public Hearing
6.7

Public Hearing

Dec 05, 2012
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
6.7

Public Hearing

Dec 05, 2012
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.
Still Film
7

Still Film

Mar 06, 2023
An ode to movie culture and its beguiling hold on our imagination, modeled on an actual legal deposition, and accompanied by a procession of 35mm publicity stills from studio press kits.
Documentary
The Republic
5

The Republic

Jul 04, 2017
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.
Mediums
1

Mediums

Jan 01, 2017
Mediums is a medium-length film, shot all in medium shots.
Occupations
1

Occupations

Mar 10, 2016
A portrait of an actor-turned-occupational-therapist, set to music performed by the filmmaker’s mother in her side job as a church organist.
Occupations
1

Occupations

Mar 10, 2016
A portrait of an actor-turned-occupational-therapist, set to music performed by the filmmaker’s mother in her side job as a church organist.
TESTER
9.667

TESTER

Mar 10, 2016
A private eye type guy recounts a tricky case, set against the unedited duration of a found BetaSP tape.
The Plagiarists
5.1

The Plagiarists

Jun 28, 2019
A young couple is shaken by a seemingly fraudulent yet unprovable act that strikes to the core of their cultural pretensions.
Drama
This Action Lies
1

This Action Lies

Sep 06, 2019
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.
The Plagiarists
5.1

The Plagiarists

Jun 28, 2019
A young couple is shaken by a seemingly fraudulent yet unprovable act that strikes to the core of their cultural pretensions.
Drama
The Plagiarists
5.1

The Plagiarists

Jun 28, 2019
A young couple is shaken by a seemingly fraudulent yet unprovable act that strikes to the core of their cultural pretensions.
Drama
The Plagiarists
5.1

The Plagiarists

Jun 28, 2019
A young couple is shaken by a seemingly fraudulent yet unprovable act that strikes to the core of their cultural pretensions.
Drama
The Plagiarists
5.1

The Plagiarists

Jun 28, 2019
A young couple is shaken by a seemingly fraudulent yet unprovable act that strikes to the core of their cultural pretensions.
Drama
Occupations
1

Occupations

Mar 10, 2016
A portrait of an actor-turned-occupational-therapist, set to music performed by the filmmaker’s mother in her side job as a church organist.
Anarchist King
1

Anarchist King

Dec 31, 2006
Mallard Gibson and Singuz Gumpfree have disowned the society of men: they have instead long conversations with a hare named Jackrabbit, with whom they share a shack on the banks of the East River. Amongst mystic visions, dark humour and anarchic associations of heterogeneous elements, Abrantes stages a post-modern, urban, completely delirious Alice in Wonderland, with a twist in the tail in store for the unsuspecting rabbit.
Special Features
1

Special Features

Nov 14, 2014
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.
Documentary
Indefinite Pitch
5.7

Indefinite Pitch

Aug 04, 2016
A procession of black-and-silvery-white stills of New England’s Androscoggin River unspools alongside an anxious monologue on movies, memory, and minor history.
Kodak
1

Kodak

Oct 05, 2018
A semi-biographical fiction inspired by his father’s work at one of Kodak’s first processing labs, Wilson’s speculative gloss on the evolution of photochemical science entwines multiple perspectives and personas. Co-written by James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Kodak imagines a dialogue between a blind, mentally unstable former film technician and George Eastman himself, recordings of whom play out over a procession of photographs, home video footage, vintage Kodak ads, and animations.
Documentary
This Action Lies
1

This Action Lies

Sep 06, 2019
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.
Best Year Ever
1

Best Year Ever

Feb 16, 2021
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.