An Author's Retrospective: Jay Rosenblatt

THE DARKNESS OF DAY

Jay Rosenblatt
Screening time  
02.03. / Friday, 18:00 - 20:00 Theatre 5  
A haunting meditation on suicide

‘The Darkness of Day’ is a haunting meditation on suicide. It is comprised entirely of found 16mm footage that had been discarded. The sadness, the isolation, and the desire to escape are recorded on film in various contexts. Voice-over readings from the journal kept by a brother of the filmmaker’s friend who committed suicide in 1990 intermix with a range of compelling stories, from the poignant double suicide of an elderly American couple to a Japanese teenager who jumped into a volcano, spawning over a thousand imitations. While this is a serious exploration of a cultural taboo, its lyrical qualities invite the viewer to approach the subject with understanding and compassion.
 

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Jay Rosenblatt

Jay Rosenblatt is an internationally recognized artist who has been working as an independent filmmaker since 1980 and has completed over thirty films. His films have received over 100 awards and have screened throughout the world. His most recent films screened for a week at MoMA, and eight of his films have been screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Jay is a recipient of a Guggenheim, USA Artists and a Rockefeller Fellowship. He is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and served on the Executive Committee for 9 years. Jay is originally from New York and has lived in San Francisco for many years. For more than 20 years he was a film and video production instructor at various film schools, including Stanford University, S.F. State University, and the San Francisco Art Institute. He is currently the Program Director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. He has a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology and, in a former life, worked as a therapist.

General sponsor

THE DARKNESS OF DAY

USA
2009, 26', color/bw, video

Directed by:
Jay Rosenblatt

Screenplay by:
Jay Rosenblatt, Jeff Greenwald

Edited by:
Jay Rosenblatt

Music:
Erik Ian Walker

Producer:
Jay Rosenblatt

Festivals & Awards:

Tampere Film Festival –  Best Documentary; It's All True Documentary Festival – Best Short Documentary; Krakow Film Festival - Best Short Documentary; Play Doc Film Festival - Best Short Documentary; Cali International Film Festival - Best Short Film; USA Film Festival – Best Experimental Film; Punto De Vista –  Special Mention; Dokufest - Special Mention
DOXA - Honorable Mention