Faculty

Profile

Cohen has made over 65 films. Feature films include Museum Hours (Locarno Film Fest premiere, theatrical run in over 100 cities), Counting, Chain, Benjamin Smoke (Berlinale premieres), Instrument (Rotterdam FF Premiere), and World Without End (Sundance premiere). Over 40 of his films were selected for the Museum of Modern Art permanent collection. Other collections include Whitney Museum of American Art, Jewish Museum, and D.C.’s National Gallery of Art. Retrospectives include Harvard Film Archive, London's Whitechapel Gallery, Indielisboa, Punto de Vista, Oberhausen, and BAFICI film fests.

Jem was a 2019 Sundance Non-fiction Fellow and has received Guggenheim, Alpert, and Rockefeller fellowships, and grants including National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, NYSCA, and NYFA. Other awards include the Independent Spirit Award and San Francisco Film Society's Persistence of Vision Award. His multi-media show with live music, We Have an Anchor, was a main stage production in BAM’s Next Wave and at London’s Barbican. He also makes video installations and still photographs which have shown at venues including
TIFF Bell Lightbox (Toronto), University of Michigan Museum of Art, SF Camerawork, Sharjah Biennial, and Robert Miller Gallery, NY.

Cohen has worked extensively with musicians including Patti Smith, Fugazi, R.E.M., Terry Riley, DJ Rupture, Xylouris White, Matana Roberts, Elliott Smith, Vic Chesnutt, and Godspeed You Black Emperor, as well as writer, Luc Sante.

He has taught at SUNY Purchase, Rutgers, International Center of Photography.