“Without struggling to assert relevance, Common Carrier feels absolutely of-the-moment in its concern with making do, eking out a creative existence in the free time left after other obligations have been met.” — Nick Pinkerton,  Frieze Magazine

At its simplest, Common Carrier is my attempt to interpret what it means to create (and be created and alive) in the year 2016. The movie tracks a small network of artists or those associated with artists, all linked by the common connection of me, the filmmaker.

The movie weaves scripted performances by real people playing versions of themselves with intimate conversations about art making, labor, technology, and life. The layered images and sounds—inspired to an extent by my interest in visual techniques developed in early Modernist art—contrast with the technologies and unavoidable airwaves of the 21st century to become what I consider a fair use cinematic “mixtape”. It was my goal to reflect our multifaceted contemporary world where there is no one right way to look or listen: we are perpetually barraged by a sea of information, histories, and the promises of absolute connection, while remaining fundamentally alone.

A mix of artists struggle to perform their roles, at once connected and alienated by the plague of modern life.

James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a filmmaker and artist based in Brooklyn. His work has been selected for international film festivals and venues including the New York Film Festival, CPH:DOX, MoMA PS1, Toronto IFF, Locarno IFF, Rotterdam IFF, Migrating Forms, and beyond. In 2016, he was awarded the Kazuko Trust Award presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and selected as one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine. In 2017, he participated in the Whitney Biennial.

Paul Dallas is a writer and producer. He is co-producing a feature documentary portrait of fashion designer Halston for Amazon/CNN Films and directed by Frédéric Tcheng. He is contributing film editor of Extra Extra Magazine and his criticism and interviews have appeared in Artforum, BOMB, Cinema Scope, Film Comment, Filmmaker, IndieWire, and Interview. He has programmed screenings and series for Columbia University, Guggenheim Museum, Maysles Cinema, and UnionDocs. He studied filmmaking at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a graduate of The Cooper Union’s School of Architecture. He is a 2015 Robert Flaherty Fellow and a 2008 Schindler Fellow at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles.