Assistant professor Laska Jimsen’s cinema repertoire ranges from nonfiction video documentaries to handmade 16mm film making. Her films are known for capturing the beauty of the natural world by paying special attention to the landscapes, people, animals, and plants of various regions of the United States. Some subjects included in her works include silent bow hunters in the snowy forests of Minnesota, an Oregon pioneer whose hobbies include coyote trapping and trombone playing, and the horses and riders of a humble stable in Philadelphia. Her wide array of films have been screened at a variety of festivals including Ann Arbor, Athens, IC Docs, and MadCat, as well as Los Angeles Filmforum and Walker Art Center.
On Monday, January 26, a few of her short films will be screened from 4:00pm-6:40pm in the Weitz Cinema. This screening will feature special sneak peeks at a couple of Jimsen’s currrent projects.
Current works-in-progress:
(Descriptions provided by CAMS department)
The video essay Deer of North America, a collaboration with filmmaker Jason Coyle, documents contradictory and mythologized relationships between human beings and deer, focusing on spaces where lines between artificial and natural, domesticated and wild, are blurred. Deer functions as an alternative field guide, a tour through habitats, built environments, and everyday wilderness, and a study of seeing and being seen by animals.
Partial funding provided by a Jerome Foundation Film & Video Grant.
The 16mm film Circles & Arrows; Matrices & Trees, a formal study of light, motion, time, domestic spaces, and the world just outside: trees downed in a storm, branches blowing idly in a summer breeze, and the tangle of highway ramps beyond the window of a temporary summer sublet.
Partial funding provided by a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.