Movies by Ben Russell
The Ataraxians
From the south of France, a science fiction film about the end of the Leisure Class and that which came to replace it.
The Red and the Blue Gods
An ethnographic field report in which the Anthropologist describes the mythic creation of an unnamed ‘sun-scraping structure’ through the ritualized actions of the Red and the Blue Gods.
The Death of Abraham Lincoln (In Three Parts)
An ahistorical re-enactment of the strange and curious events that led up to the untimely demise of our nation’s sixteenth president.
Extra Terrestrial
“A deadpan video art reworking of 1982's highest-grossing movie, EXTRA TERRESTRIAL peels away layers of sentimental narrative goo from its source, exposing a hard core of anxiety, loneliness and dread. Shifting the focus from character to interior, Ben Russell and Rhyne Piggott mine the landscape of a beige-carpeted ranch style house for new insights into the architecture of suburban alienation.” - Anne Reecer, Cinematexas
Daumë
Culled from four rolls of Super-8 film shot while the maker was a development worker in a small South American village, Daumë is at its center a film about ritual, power, and play. Daumë is both ethnography and critique; it is an interrogation into how to represent a place that can't be represented.