We’re thrilled to welcome filmmaker Nellie Kluz all the way from the Windy City to present ORGANIZED ACTIVITIES, a program comprised almost entirely of NYC Premieres of her short documentary works. Vadim Rizov praised her documentary style in Filmmaker Magazine with the observation that ” Kluz’s inquisitive eye captures glimpses of often kitschy or strange events without abandoning well-meaning curiosity.” She has been a Flaherty Seminar Fellowship, and was the recipient of the Princess Grace Film Award and a Rooftop Films Short Film Grant, and as well as named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s recent “25 Faces of Independent Film”.

This program of her short videos explores collective belief systems and fantasies, and the infrastructures that support them. They look for loopholes: in the flow of time; the economic grind; and prosaic reality.

Emphasizing personal contact and experiential knowledge, these works come out of open-ended encounters with various kinds of believers and myth-makers. In these films, Kluz considers the appeal of ritualized spaces and contact zones for people with competing ideologies. The camera pays close attention to the textures of faces, voices, and surfaces, using observational documentary approaches to carefully grasp and re-arrange details.

Kluz will be in attendance and in conversation with collaborator LJ Frezza following the program.

All over America, rain or shine, pilgrims journey together.

Witches, cinematographers and other members of the crew pass a night together in the woods.

Gold is a commodity that thrives in uncertain economic climates. There’s a harvest every day as scrap dealers comb through excess metal from flusher times, buying up discarded gold to re-sell to refineries.

The Real Story

Behind the scenes at a Christian passion play staged in the Ozark mountains. A dramatization of the last days and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the play is a decades-long evangelizing project, tourist attraction, and spectacle – part religious ritual, part community theater. In a space where associations are swirling, the cast and crew speak about their experiences, memories, and fears.

Nellie Kluz is a filmmaker and artist based in Chicago. Using curiosity, observation and analysis, she records and interprets various locations and communities – focusing on social interactions, belief systems and material realities.

Her films have screened at venues like the Full Frame Film Festival, Festival de Popoli, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, the Independent Film Festival Boston, the Maryland Film Festival, The DocYard, the Sidewalk Film Festival, Rooftop Films and others. She has been the recipient of the Princess Grace Film Award and a Rooftop Films Short Film Grant. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Faces of Independent Film” for 2017.

LJ Frezza is an artist and video editor based in New York City. Their video works use film and television as raw material to create personal variations on mass media. LJ works professionally in television post-production, and organizes film programs for Spectacle Theater.