Azazel Jacobs

🥳Spring issue of @millennium_film journal! Final Whole Shebang screening @filmcoop tonight! THANK YOU to all the theaters, curators, and audiences who participated, and to @lamphole for the incredible organizing feat celebrating the life and work of Ken & Flo Jacobs. May the muse of cinema be forever to the rescue. ♥️ @themuseumofmodernart @lightindustry @anthologyfilmarchives @roxycinemanyc @metrograph @uniondocs @bam_brooklyn @lallianceny @spectaclenyc @filmlinc @movingimagenyc @rockawayfilmfest @millennium_film @filmcoop 🙏

“A cinematic action-painting.” — Ken Jacobs describing his 1964 film WINDOW, which we will project on 16mm this Sunday, April 26. Free tickets at rockwayfilmfestival.org.

THIS Monday 8pm @filmlinc ! One of Ken & Flo Jacobs’s signature (and most personal) works, The Sky Socialist is many things: an allegorical meditation on the post-Holocaust world, starring Flo Jacobs as “Anne Frank”; a handcrafted document of pre-gentrification lower Manhattan, at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge; a monument to the force and immediacy of small-gauge filmmaking; and a mutable text to which Jacobs would return time and again throughout his career, reworking, revising, and reimagining its elements across various projects. Shot entirely on Ken and Flo’s rooftop, The Sky Socialist dazzlingly melds the personal with the political, past with present, and diaristic documentary with epic allegory, and the transfixing result is nothing less than one of the most essential American avant-garde films of the 1960s.⁠ ⁠ #TheWholeShebang #KenJacobs #FloJacobs #ExpandedCinema #ExperimentalFilm NYC⁠

Sunday, April 26: The Whole Shebang: Celebrating Ken & Flo Jacobs We are honored to join the city-wide tribute to Ken and Flo Jacobs, two pioneers of experimental cinema who both passed away in 2025. Their radical inventions and interventions of images transcended familiar notions of time and space and inspired generations of avant-garde filmmakers.  This program features some of Ken and Flo’s many interrogations of depth — and also the movement of water — including a world premiere and other rarely screened work. Clip 1 from CAPITALISM DEFEATS LIFE ON EARTH, CAB IN RAIN (2017), clip 2 from BI-TEMPORAL VISION: THE SEA (2019). Free screening. Very special thanks to @lamphole &  @azazeljacobs . More info at rockwayfilmfestival.org.

MOMMA’S MAN @filmlinc 6pm this Monday, the 20th! On 35mm! Q&A with me 😊Part of #TheWholeShebang celebrating Ken & Flo Jacobs with THE SKY SOCIALIST screening at 8pm! Hope to see you there 💖#TheWholeShebang #KenJacobs #FloJacobs #ExpandedCinema ExperimentalFilm NYC

🥳❤️🙏‼️ @thevisiblepress : Our Ken Jacobs book is OUT TODAY !!! “I Walked Into My Shortcomings” gathers the writings, teachings and interviews of Ken Jacobs, a singular figure in American art and experimental film. This project has taken well over a decade to complete and is a labour of love for its editor William Rose. The book is packed with text and images, and was designed by @markelkhatib . Ken’s inimitable voice leaps from every page, narrating a lifetime of experimentation while offering a gritty and incisive critique of American society and its entanglements with capitalism, representation, race and ethnicity. At once personal, theoretical, and political, the book captures the urgency and wit of a practice that will continue to reshape how we see and think. The Visible Press is thrilled that the book is now finally going out into the world, though we are all sorry that it couldn’t be published during Ken and Flo’s lifetimes. We are grateful to their son @azazeljacobs and daughter Nisi for their support, and for the partnership with @anthologyfilmarchives that made it possible now. Available by mail order and in person in the USA from @anthologyfilmarchives ; in Europe from @revoir_video Paris. UK and worldwide mail order from @thevisiblepress & in bookshops via our distributor @public_knowledge_books . [linkinbio] Ken Jacobs: I Walked Into My Shortcomings. Edited by William Rose, introduction by J. Hoberman. Published by The Visible Press in association with Anthology Film Archives. Paperback, 544 pages. ISBN 9780992837754

THE WHOLE SHEBANG: TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES ONE NIGHT ONLY SATURDAY, APRIL 18 – 7:00PM (w/ introduction by James Otis) 
$10 special event tickets available on our site! This April, Spectacle is privileged to participate in THE WHOLE SHEBANG: CELEBRATING KEN AND FLO JACOBS, a month-long fourteen-venue tribute to the two most inseparable and essential heroes of avant-garde film. The couple’s legacy of adroit optical distortion and critical recycling of commercial entertainment –not to mention their role in paving the stone’s of New York’s enduring network of experimental film exhibition and distribution– has made them a guiding constellation for some of the predilections and programming practices of past and present volunteer members of our micro-cinema. While Spectacle has yet to have screened a Jacobs work, we have dedicated programs to filmmakers who were close friends, correspondents, and collaborators of theirs over the years. Fortuitously, we are thrilled to once again host Colorado-based weirdo art film luminary James Otis, who will introduce this celebratory screening and speak to his own memories and friendship with Ken and Flo Jacobs. The main piece of the evening is TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES, an under-seen and moving digital adaptation of a 1989 nervous system tribute performance made in the immediate wake of the deaths, only days apart, of Jacobs collaborators Jack Smith and Bob Fleischner. The footage of the artists is made into a flickering frolic through the Lower East Side, set to the soundtrack of the Ramon Navarro vehicle THE BARBARIAN (Sam Wood, 1933). These images also made their way into Ken Jacobs’ epic six-hour STAR SPANGLED TO DEATH (2004), an anti-patriotic omnibus that also includes James Otis’ ON YOUR OWN, the gut busting found footage opener of Spectacle’s 2025 Otis retrospective. ON YOUR OWN will precede the feature presentation, as well as FOR JAMES OTIS, a Ken Jacobs eternalism made from one of Otis’ many dazzling iPhone panoramas. Special thanks to @lamphole and James Otis. Extra special thanks to Nisi Ariana, @azazeljacobs , and Diaz.

Ken & Flo Jacobs: Seeing Through Film 🎞️⁠ ⁠ The retrospective Seeing Through Film celebrates the work and lives of Ken and Flo Jacobs, who both passed away in 2025. It coincides with the publication of I Walked Into My Shortcomings, an anthology of Jacobs’ writings edited by William Rose for The Visible Press⁠ ⁠ One of the American avant-garde’s most prolific figures, Ken Jacobs (1933-2025) and his wife and lifelong collaborator Flo Jacobs (1941-2025) were an integral part of the New York alternative film scene. ⁠ ⁠ "What mattered most for Jacobs was the encounter between a work and an audience who were prepared to meet its demands." – William Rose⁠ ⁠ Ken & Flo Jacobs: Seeing Through Film 1⁠ Wednesday 15 April at @icalondon , 6.15pm ⁠ A programme of Jacobs’ early collaborations with Jack Smith.⁠ ⁠ Ken & Flo Jacobs: Seeing Through Film 2 ⁠ Thursday 16 April at @icalondon , 6.30pm⁠ A selection of works in New York, seen through the eyes of Ken Jacobs. ⁠ ⁠ Ken & Flo Jacobs: Seeing Through Film 3 ⁠ Saturday 18 April at @closeupfilmcentre , 2.30pm⁠ Includes The Whole Shebang, the 2019 video is a reworking of the 1982 Nervous System piece.⁠ ⁠ Ken & Flo Jacobs: Seeing Through Film 4⁠ Saturday 18 April at @closeupfilmcentre , 2.30pm⁠ This programme presents more “Eternalisms” and Jacobs at his most explicitly political.⁠ ⁠ Epilogue: Star Spangled To Death⁠ Sunday 10 May at @barbicancentre , 11am⁠ Almost 7 hours long, Ken Jacobs' magnum opus is a social critique of the USA, as poignant and relevant today as in the 1950s. ⁠

@opencitydocs celebrates Ken & Flo Jacobs at the ICA in London!🇬🇧 Wed 15 April, 6:15pm. Little Stabs At Happiness Blonde Cobra The Whirled 😊 #KenJacobs #FloJacobs #ExpandedCinema #ExperimentalFilm #London

This 𝗦𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗔𝗬, 𝗔𝗣𝗥 𝟭𝟮 — 𝟰:𝟯𝟬𝗣𝗠 & 𝟴𝗣𝗠 Join us for a special program as part of the month-long citywide tribute to 𝗞𝗲𝗻 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗼𝗯𝘀 and 𝗙𝗹𝗼 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗼𝗯𝘀. Our night for this extravaganza is programmed with scholar 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹 [ @hannaroseshell ] and curator 𝗔𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘄 𝗟𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁 [ @lamphole ], who will also lead a post-screening conversation. This evening brings together three landmark works from across their extraordinary practice: 𝘕𝘌𝘞 𝘠𝘖𝘙𝘒 𝘎𝘏𝘌𝘛𝘛𝘖 𝘍𝘐𝘚𝘏 𝘔𝘈𝘙𝘒𝘌𝘛 1903 (2006), 𝘜𝘙𝘉𝘈𝘕 𝘗𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘈𝘕𝘛𝘚 (1975), and 𝘑𝘌𝘙𝘙𝘠 𝘛𝘈𝘒𝘌𝘚 𝘈 𝘉𝘈𝘊𝘒 𝘚𝘌𝘈𝘛, 𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘕 𝘗𝘈𝘚𝘚𝘌𝘚 𝘖𝘜𝘛 𝘖𝘍 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘗𝘐𝘊𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘌 (1987). A stroboscopic reworking of 1903 Lower East Side market footage, an assemblage of Flo Jacobs’ family filmed by her aunt Stella, and a work with the inimitable Jerry Sims. All transform and push archival and home-movie materials into living encounters with time, perception, and collective memory. Creative partners since 1962, Ken and Flo Jacobs reshaped experimental cinema through radical projection systems, live performance, and tactile engagements with analog and digital media, leaving an indelible mark on generations of artists. Join us for this special program, with time to gather, discuss and toast the Jacobs’ enduring impact. Special thanks to 𝗔𝘇𝗮𝘇𝗲𝗹 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗼𝗯𝘀 [ @azazeljacobs ] and the @filmcoop for supporting this program. Come through! 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗕 𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗘𝗧𝗦 🔗 𝗜𝗡 𝗕𝗜𝗢 🎟️ And SWIPE to look through all the other incredible organizations and screenings in store! #TheWholeShebang #KenJacobs #FloJacobs #ExpandedCinema #ExperimentalFilm

The Whole Shebang. April 2026 is Ken & Flo Jacobs Month in New York City. “The Whole Shebang” is a 14-venue salute to two of experimental cinema’s most beloved icons, organised and co-ordinated by @lamphole (Andrew Lampert). “This sweeping festival represents an unprecedented aligning of venues across the city, all of whom presented and championed the Jacobs' uncompromising output during the last six-plus decades. Featuring key works, many theatrical and world premieres, and plenty of deep cuts, “The Whole Shebang” serves as both a remembrance and an introduction to the duo's remarkable achievements and impossible-to-categorize genius.” The full schedule is online at lify.app [linkinbio]. The series has already begun on 1 April at @themuseumofmodernart and the first of several screenings at @anthologyfilmarchives is tonight. Copies of our new Ken Jacobs book “I Walked Into My Shortcomings” are available at many of the screenings, and always through the box office at Anthology. Links for mail order and other stockists in our bio. #nervousken #kenandflojacobs #thewholeshebang #iwalkedintomyshortcomings

Ken Jacobs in his own words. "I Walked Into My Shortcomings", spanning seven decades of writing, teaching, and interviews, is available this April from The Visible Press in association with Anthology Film Archives. Edited by William Rose with the utmost care and thought.⁠ ⁠ Can't even begin to tell you what holding this book in my hands is like. To turn to any page and hear my folks voices with every word, it's immense. Long in the works, I was able to tell my dad that it was going to press and he was just so happy. Pick it up at Anthology Film Archives or order online w the link in bio. ⁠ #TheWholeShebang #KenJacobs #FloJacobs #ExpandedCinema #ExperimentalFilm #NYC