Nobody’s Business

Alan Berliner takes on his reclusive father as the reluctant subject of this poignant and graceful study of family history and memory. What emerges is a uniquely cinematic biography that finds both humor and pathos in the swirl of conflicts and affections that bind father and son. Ultimately this complex portrait is a meeting of the minds – where the past meets the present, where generations collide, and where the boundaries of family life are pushed, pulled, stretched, torn and surprisingly at times, also healed. Particularly in this age of low format video proliferation, Nobody’s Business is notable for its masterful editing, stunning craft and exquisite filmmaking. Filmmaker Alan Berliner achieves a rare feat of inter-generational sleuthing as he weaves together aesthetically and emotionally rich interviews with his father and other family members, an extraordinary array of archival material, and live action sequences to create an inventive and touching essay on memory and family. (Rockefeller Foundation Catalogue)

Nobody’s Business (60 min) will be preceded by Berliner’s Everywhere at Once (1985, 8 min). Everywhere at Once is a rapid-fire musical montage that fuses an eclectic array of sounds and images into a single, synchronized flow. Built from a vast personal archive gathered over many years, these collage films transform accumulated cultural fragments into a form of poetic bricolage linking the real and the imagined. Ultimately, they express a desire to impose order on a universe shaped by an ever-growing puzzle of disparate elements.

Presented in collaboration with Tënk, this screening will be presented by guest programmer Jack Guariento.