Jules Rosskam

Questions are critical to my artistic process. “What does it mean to tell the truth?” “How do I engage others in a process that opens a space for transformation?” Predominantly working in film and video, I aim to induce a perceptual shift in our understanding of how and what bodies mean, toward an apprehension of multiplicities. I am consistently drawn to the rich discursive space of the liminal: the space between male and female, between documentary and fiction, between motion and stasis. I am particularly interested in the intersections of queer, feminist, and decolonial theories with avant-garde filmmaking practices because of the interventions these meetings produce in discourses of power and representation. I am working from, and within, a history of artists whose cultural productions work in tandem with political movements. My films cross cinematic boundaries through experimentation with hybrid forms in order to highlight the fact that boundaries—of identity, discipline, geography— are porous

Still from Desire Lines, video, work-in-progress

Jules Rosskam is an internationally award-winning filmmaker, educator and 2021 Creative Capital Awardee. His interdisciplinary practice works to induce a perceptual shift in our understanding of how and what bodies mean, toward an apprehension of multiplicities. His most recent feature-length documentary, Paternal Rites (2018), premiered at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight and went on to win several festival awards. He is also the director of Dance, Dance, Evolution (2019), Something to Cry About (2018), Thick Relations (2012), against a trans narrative (2009), and transparent (2005). His work has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Art Boston, the British Film Institute, Arsenal Berlin, Anthology Film Archives, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, the Queens Museum of Art, the Museum of Moving Images, and hundreds of film festivals worldwide. He has participated in residencies at Yaddo, ISSUE Project Room, Marble House, PLAYA and ACRE. He is currently Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at University of Maryland Baltimore County