A civic transcript buried on the internet is regenerated as a feature film, word-for-word and entirely in close-up. Public Hearing is the verbatim re-performance of a rural American town meeting from a transcript downloaded as publicly available information. Shot entirely in cinematic close-up on black-and-white 16mm film, a cast of actors and non-actors read between the lines in an ironic debate over the replacement of an existing Wal-Mart with a super Wal-Mart.

Public Hearing by James N. Kienitz Wilkins 

110 minutes | USA | 2012 | 16mm-to-HD Projection

James N. Kienitz Wilkins is an artist and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. Working mostly in film and video, his projects have screened internationally. He’s received grants and support from Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Experimental Television Center, and elsewhere. Residencies include the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts’ Art & Law Program, Jihlava Inspiration Forum, Berlin Talents, and the MacDowell Colony. He produces and distributes his work through The Automatic Moving Co., an artist group and production company based in New York. He is a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Art.

Theodore Bouloukos is a New York-based actor and writer whose international performance work encompasses independent cinema, commercial projects in broadcast, voice and print, and character narratives in video, stage, painting, photography and tableaux vivants. In addition to his principal role in Public Hearing, he recently appeared in Nathan Silver’s Soft in the Head and Kalup Linzy’s Melody Set Me Free.

Eugene Wasserman (Public Hearing, composer) is a musician and sound engineer based in Brooklyn. He plays with the band, Dinner, whose album, Ray, will be released later this year.