“My work is driven by rhythm more than anything. Rhythm doesn’t necessarily need visual movement to have life. Filmmaking is a medium of time for me, not movement. Movement is only movement because of time. That said, I think the film is filled with movement in more subtle yet precise ways. Those are the moments I find fascinating. – Brent Chesanek
Brent Chesanek is a filmmaker operating somewhere in the shadows between narrative, documentary, and experimental practice. He grew up in Central Florida and his work carries a fascination with everyday Floridian and broader American self-mythologies.
Chesanek’s films have screened at CPH:DOX, RIDM, Seattle International Film Festival, DOXA, Singapore International Film Festival, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Denver Film Festival, Art Basel Miami Beach, and more. He has presented projects at Ji.Hlava New Visions Forum, UnionDocs, US-In-Progress Paris.
Chesanek studied journalism/telecom and film theory at the University of Florida. He lives and works in Brooklyn.
- City World (2012, HD, colour, sound, 69 mins)
City World is a doc-hybrid set in the physical and psychological wastelands of an abandoned Orlando, Florida. A young boy narrates an adventure tale that slowly swivels from a American historical myth into his own harrowing familial reality. Set in the swamps and the suburbs, and populated by plants, animals, roads and architecture, City World is a meditation on modernity, history, mythology, nature, and theme parks.
Full details here