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What is Cinema?

Directed by Chuck Workman

United States • 2013 • 80 mins. • In English

Showtimes & Past Screenings

Chuck Workman is best known for creating unforgettable Oscar montage sequences. In What is Cinema?, he shares his understanding and love of avant-garde cinematic language by creating a visual essay out of clips from films that have pushed the boundaries of the art form. Woven among them are new and archival interviews with a pantheon of personal filmmakers that provide food for thought on where cinema might be headed. Workman’s interview subjects include the likes of Mike Leigh, Jonas Mekas, Yvonne Rainer, David Lynch, video artist Bill Viola, Kelly Reichardt, Costa-Gavras, Ken Jacobs, and Michael Moore, who consider key artists from Chantal Akerman to Andy Warhol, along with vintage interviews with Robert Bresson, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, and many others.

Genres: Experimental Documentary, Anthology

Appears in: 37th Portland International Film Festival

The Northwest Film Center recognizes and honors the Indigenous peoples of this region on whose ancestral lands the museum now stands. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlemet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Native communities who made their homes along the Columbia River. We also want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, future—and are grateful for their ongoing and vibrant presence.