Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa
BENJAMIN SCHULTZ-FIGEROA is a Ph.D. candidate in Film and Digital Media at The University of California, Santa Cruz. His work focuses on the history of film’s use to study animals in laboratory settings.
POSTCARD FROM THE AVANT-GARDE
Highlights from the 49th NYFF’s Views
By Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa and Aily Nash
From Jean-Marie Straub’s didactic elegies for Kafka and Orpheus to Michael Robinson’s A Line Describing Your Mom, and wacky new work by the late, great George Kuchar, there was much seriousness and much fun to be had at this year’s Views, which utilized the new venue to showcase more work than ever before.
COUNTER PROJECTIONS: PAUL SHARITS at Greene Naftali Gallery
By Benjamin Schultz-FigueroaI worked for a year at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative just before it left its location in the Clocktower Gallery. The majority of my time there involved cleaning and inspecting films, and while generally speaking, this was a pretty tedious task, it was fascinating to spin certain films through the rewinds and imagine what they would look like projected.
BOILING BLOOD
Giallo Fever! at Anthology Film Archives
By Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa
A young woman enters her chic quarters. She begins to disrobe, preparing for bed. A hand wearing a black leather driving gloves reaches out and cuts the cord for the lights.
AFFECTIVE NUMBERS
Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme’s Le Joli Mai
By Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa
In the month of May in 1962, 5,056 people were imprisoned in the prisons of Paris. This statistic comes with others toward the end of Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme’s 1963 film Le Joli Mai, a film that begins as a reverie and ends as an indictment.
Upside Down Cameras and Other Wonders
Ernie Gehr’s Signal—Germany on the Air and Side/Walk/Shuttle at Light Industry, October 8
By Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa
Ernie Gehr’s Side/Walk/Shuttle (1991) and Signal—Germany on the Air (1985) are unlike any other city symphony films.
In Conversation
IRENE LUSZTIG with Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa
With her latest film, The Motherhood Archives (2013), Irene Lusztig engages with birth as a cultural phenomenon, a topic that sparks passionate beliefs, yet is rarely discussed critically or publicly.
In Conversation
TRINH T. MINH-HA with Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa & Patricia Alvarez
Trinh T. Minh-ha has made a career of working between disciplines—troubling the foundational precepts of both anthropology and documentary. Her first film Reassemblage (1982), and her written critical analysis of ethnographic methods, effectively shaped a generation of debate over feminism, racism, empiricism, and colonialism in nonfiction filmmaking.
In Conversation
FEMEXFILMARCHIVE with Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa
By Benjamin Schultz-FigueroaIn the Fall of 2017, the filmmakers Irene Lusztig and Julie Wyman orchestrated a joint project between two classes being taught at the Universities of California, Santa Cruz and Davis.
SCISSOR SPECULATIONS
Cut & Paste: Contemporary Collage Animation From North America at Anthology Film Archives
By Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa
Lawrence Jordan’s Sophie’s Place (1986) begins with a title card describing the etymology of the Greek word for philosophy, “philosophia.”
In Conversation
ALWAYS IN THE PRESENT TENSE
KEVIN JEROME EVERSON with Benjamin Schultz‑Figueroa
Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa speaks with filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson about Everson's new work.
LIFE IN THE NO-GO ZONE
Two Views of Husbandry and Decline at Japan Cuts
By Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa
Aya Hanabusa’s Tale of a Butcher Shop begins and ends with the processing of a cow into packaged meat.
NARRATIVES OF ISOLATION: JACQUELINE GOSS with Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa
Jacqueline Goss’s new film The Observers (2011) follows two climatologists through their daily routine of recording weather patterns at the top of Mount Washington.
ANDY’S ANIMALS
By Benjamín Schultz-FigueroaAndy Warhol’s immense body of work can at times seem to cover every subject under the sun. The equally immense amount of criticism and conjecture about his oeuvre makes the whole subject of Warhol’s art fraught with polarization and speculation.
John Gould: The Family of Toucans
By Benjamín Schultz-FigueroaTaschen’s resuscitation of John Gould’s series of prints, The Family of Toucans, comes in an impressively unwieldy box, measured at 13.3 by 19.3 inches.
