In Person:
Christopher Harris
May 30 and 31, 2025
Christopher Harris is in a rare class of Black film artists who came of age at a shared moment and are now at the forefront of moving images in the 21st century. This includes such resounding names as Kevin Jerome Everson, Arthur Jafa, and Cauleen Smith, to mention only a few. Harris is the consummate slow chef among this cohort, with each work prepared on a precise and measured timetable, served up deftly on select occasions. With ten films and one installation to his credit since the year 2000, Harris's productivity is reserved – but if you know, you know: The oeuvre is sublime. Now, newly-minted as a full professor at Princeton University, his impact and influence are poised to spread exponentially. After more than two decades of dedicated activity in film, one gets the feeling that he is just getting started. So consider this tribute not an act of looking back, but rather a forecast of the superlative things to come.
From his early masterpiece still/here, which he completed as his thesis film while a student at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, through his most recent film Speaking in Tongues: Take One, a loose adaptation of the novel Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. Continuing from Harris' first complete retrospective at Anthology Film Archives in New York in September 2024, in addition to his presentation at the 2024 Whitney Biennial in New York, this program surveys the scope of Harris' career and aesthetic, which is dedicated to 16 millimeter as a practice and which is characterized by a primary concern and care for Black culture and visuality in a multiplicity of forms.
With Christopher Harris in attendance
In collaboration with Vienna Shorts
Christopher Harris is in a rare class of Black film artists who came of age at a shared moment and are now at the forefront of moving images in the 21st century. This includes such resounding names as Kevin Jerome Everson, Arthur Jafa, and Cauleen Smith, to mention only a few. Harris is the consummate slow chef among this cohort, with each work prepared on a precise and measured timetable, served up deftly on select occasions. With ten films and one installation to his credit since the year 2000, Harris's productivity is reserved – but if you know, you know: The oeuvre is sublime. Now, newly-minted as a full professor at Princeton University, his impact and influence are poised to spread exponentially. After more than two decades of dedicated activity in film, one gets the feeling that he is just getting started. So consider this tribute not an act of looking back, but rather a forecast of the superlative things to come.
From his early masterpiece still/here, which he completed as his thesis film while a student at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, through his most recent film Speaking in Tongues: Take One, a loose adaptation of the novel Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. Continuing from Harris' first complete retrospective at Anthology Film Archives in New York in September 2024, in addition to his presentation at the 2024 Whitney Biennial in New York, this program surveys the scope of Harris' career and aesthetic, which is dedicated to 16 millimeter as a practice and which is characterized by a primary concern and care for Black culture and visuality in a multiplicity of forms.
With Christopher Harris in attendance
In collaboration with Vienna Shorts
Link Vienna Shorts
