Nathaniel Dorsky

Born in 1943, Dorsky remains one of America’s stand out experimentalists.

These films…»blend a beauteous celebration of the sensual world with a deep sense of introspection and solitude. They are occasions for reflection and meditation, on light, landscape, time and the motions of consciousness… Dorsky’s films reveal the mystery behind everyday existence, providing intimations of eternity.» – Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque.

Program

Triste
1978-96
18.5mins
16mm

Edited from 20 years of footage. By delicately shifting the weight and solidity of the images, and bringing together subject matter not ordinarily associated, a deeper sense of impermanence and mystery can open.

17 Reasons Why
1985-87
20mins
16mm

Photographed with a variety of semi-ancient regular 8 cameras and is projected unslit as 16mm. These pocket-sized relics enabled me to walk around virtually «unseen», exploring and improvising with the immediacy of a more spontaneous medium

Compline
2009
18.5min
16mm

Compline is a night devotion or prayer, the last of the canonical hours, the final act in a cycle. The last film Dorsky was able to shoot on Kodachrome, a film stock he had used for over 50 years.

Ember Days
2021
10.5min
16mm

«The fifth film made during the Covid crises… primordial spring is in the air, all is tentative.» – Dorsky