Jerry TARTAGLIA


Nationality: American

Jerry Tartaglia is an experimental filmmaker and writer whose work in Experimental Film and Queer Cinema spans fivedecades. He studied with the Abstract Expressionist Painter, Harry Koursaros, who introduced him to the work of Jack Smith, Jonas Mekas, and Gregory Markopoulos.

Later, he co-founded Berks Filmmakers Inc, one of the longest surviving Micro-Cinema Showcases for Experimental Media Art in the U.S. In the 1970s he produced his lost feature, Lawless with Warhol Factory star Pope Ondine. He also assisted Tony Conrad in the manufacture & production of the Yellow Movie series in 1973.

He was the first to write about the gay sensibility in American Avant-Garde film (1977) and his work is an ongoing examination of Gay Identity and Queer media politics through Cinema.

The A.I.D.S. Trilogy made during the early days of the epidemic in America, has been screened around the world. His work was included in the Century-end retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, "The Art of the 20th Century." Seven of his films have been premiered at the Berlinale since 1990.

In 1993 he was one of the twelve artists who created the Red Ribbon as a symbol of A.I.D.S. awareness through the Artists' Caucus of Visual AIDS in NYC, paving the way for awareness ribbons of all kinds.

In the early 1990s, he began the work of restoring and preserving the film legacy of Jack Smith. He reconstructed Smith's three feature films and eleven shorts for the Smith Estate.

By the turn of the 21st Century, Tartaglia had made the transition to Digital Moving Image Production, though he did continue working with 16mm celluloid. He became increasingly interested in producing work that challenged the complacency of the screen/viewer relationship, and developed a series of ?Live Film Action? works under the rubric The Way of the World.

In 2003 he became the custodian of the film works of the late Gary Goldberg, who is best known for a series of films starring Taylor Mead and Bill Rice.

In 2013 he completed a video that is a resetting of the 1933 film Das Blaue Licht by Leni Riefenstahl. A Short History of the Future examines the question of artistic neutrality in this age.

He has recently completed a feature length experimental film essay concerning the works of Jack Smith. Using audio tape recordings made by Smith, along with Smith's film material and previously unseen visual art," Escape From Rented Island: The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith" explores Smith's aesthetic principles and ideas using only his own work. It will premiere in 2018 at the 68th Berlinale.

10 MOVIES IN DISTRIBUTION

  ESCAPE FROM RENTED ISLAND - The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith
2017 / DVCAM / color / sound / single screen / 88' 00 / 210 €
distribution: DCP on USB stick or Digital file on USB stick
AMNESIA
1998 / color / sound / single screen / 7' 00 / 25 €
distribution: 16mm
SEE FOR YOURSELF
1995 / color / silent / single screen / 17' 00 / 58 €
distribution: 16mm
INTERPRETATIONS OF DREAMS
1993 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 17' 00 / 58 €
distribution: 16mm
FINAL SOLUTIONS
1990 / color / sound / 10' 30 / 27 €
distribution: Digital file on server
REMEMBRANCE
1990 / 16mm / b&w / sound / single screen / 5' 00 / 23 €
distribution: 16mm
THE A.I.D.S. TRILOGY
1988-1990 / color-b&w / sound / 23' 45 / 83 €
distribution: Digital file on server
  ECCE HOMO
1989 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 7' 00 / 27 €
distribution: 16mm or Digital file on server
A.I.D.S.C.R.E.A.M.
1988 / color-b&w / sound / 6' 45 / 27 €
distribution: Digital file on server
EXCERPT FROM LAWLESS
1977 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 13' 00 / 28 €
distribution: 16mm