DIY Filmmaking in an Economic Collapse Workshop CalArts, Valencia CA, March 2010
DIY Filmmaking in an Economic Collapse Workshop Cali, Colombia 2009
Film Panel Judge, Yaddo Artist Residency Saratoga NY 2009
Presentation, Talent Campus Buenos Aires Argentina 2009
Presentation, Seminario Internacional de Cinema e Audiovisual Salvador, Brazil 2009
Festival Judge, Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival Iowa 2008
Artist Panel, Vancouver International Film Festival British Columbia 2007
Distribution Panel, Jacksonville International Film Festival Florida 2006

Damn Dirty Apes: Dead Festivals in the USA

In a country that forgets everything, it’s worth remembering that the New York Underground Film Festival, Austin-based Cinematexas, and Iowa City’s Thaw were three of the best festivals for films that opened up new, contemporary ideas of what cinema could be. All three of these “underground festivals” mixed satire and difficult conceptual work with personal docs and performative videos, focusing on film and video as an artistic expression without playing to the fantasy of modernist high art or preconceptions of genre and expectation. Experimental film and video in the US are often treated as a genre apart from mainstream film, but these festivals showed work across the spectrum of filmmaking, including formal experimentation, video art, radical political work and a low-budget fuck-you kind of underground cinema... (continue reading | download pdf)

-Cinema Scope, Fall 2008

A Rising Son, Will Kim Jong-Il Save North Korea?

VICE MAGAZINE, October 2009

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The Yes Men Fix the World 2009

A screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world's most outrageous pranks. From New Orleans to India to New York City, armed with little more than cheap thrift-store suits, the Yes Men squeeze raucous comedy out of all the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Who knew fixing the world could be so much fun?

Communist Heroes of South America 2004-2005

Needlepoint pillow series of six different lines of communist ideology in Latin America from the 1960s through the 1980s. Each pillow has a revolutionary figure and an organizational symbol or nation he or she is connected to. Pictured left is Carlos the Jackal with the image of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The pillows went on a strange trip right after the 2004 election through South Carolina and Florida to craft fairs as part of the Red State Craft Tour.

Juche Film Series Winter 2007

Socialist-realist musical melodramas, military parades and medieval monster movies all under the loving guidance of the Dear Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il.

Video Mundi at the Chicago Cultural Center 2003, 2004

Co-organizer of experimental video festival sponsored by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Goethe Institute, Instituto Cervantes and the Consulates of The Netherlands, Canada, Austria as well as the Mexican Fine Arts Museum. Each year eight international curators and artists were invited to present video programs to the public.

Out of the Vault 2001

Organizer, 16mm Festival at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Monster Lotería Film Tour Spring 2005

Jim Finn and Arthur Jones present their work in a tour of the Northeast, Midwest and South.

Red State Craft Tour January 2005

Jim Finn and Cat Mazza tour red state craft fairs with their political crafts.

Men and Animals Film Tour Spring 2003

Jim Finn and Dean Rank present their work in 23 cities.