Film Forum

Johan Grimonprez’s critically acclaimed work dances on the borders of theory and practice, between art and cinema, going beyond the dualisms of documentary and fiction, other and self, mind and brain to weave new pathways in how we perceive our realities. Informed by an archeology of present-day media, his work depicts intimate stories that brush up against the bigger picture of globalization. It questions our collective imagination, one framed by a fear industry that has infected political and social dialogue. By suggesting new narratives through which to tell a story, his work emphasizes a multiplicity of realities. Our histories and memories are not only a means to reimagine our contested past, but also tools to negotiate our shared presents. In Wonderland, the Queen rephrases it to Alice: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” Grimonprez’s feature films include DIAL H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997, in collaboration with novelist Don DeLillo, selected by the Guardian as one of the “30 great works in the history of video art”), DOUBLE TAKE (2009, in collaboration with writer Tom McCarthy — another Film Forum premiere) and SHADOW WORLD (2016, in combination with investigative journalist Andrew Feinstein) premiered at the Tribeca Festival and went on to win the Best Documentary Feature Award at the 2016 Edinburgh International Film Festival. Traveling the festival circuit from the Berlinale, Sundance to Tribeca, Grimonprez’s films have garnered several Best Director awards, the 2005 ZKM International Media Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and the 2009 Black Pearl Award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. They have been acquired by PBS, NBC Universal, ARTE, and BBC/FILM 4. Grimonprez’s curatorial projects have been exhibited at museums worldwide, including the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; and MoMA. His works are in the collections of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; and Tate Modern, London. Grimonprez is represented by the Sean Kelly Gallery (New York) and The Kamel Mennour Galerie (Paris) and he’s published by Hatje Cantz, Stuttgart. See johangrimonprez.be for more info.

Devika Girish is the editor of Film Comment magazine and a Talks programmer at the New York Film Festival. She’s a regular contributor to The New York Times, and her work has also been published in The Nation, Sight & Sound, The Criterion Collection and The New York Review of Books. Photo credit: Arin Sang-Urai

Supported by a Humanities New York Action Grant

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