Migrating Forms

Maximilian Le Cain provides an introduction to the work of James Fotopoulos, a Chicago-based filmmaker who can be genuinely described as 'independent'

'American Independent Cinema': the term has been much used and abused over the past decade and a half. Everyone has their own definition. I like the most reductive one, the most idealistic: not simply economic independence from Hollywood, but independence of thought; the independence earned by a filmmaker with the courage and intelligence to completely rethink cinema, to cut to its very essence and remind viewers what the medium is capable of in the hands of a true visionary: Harmony Korine. Abel Ferrara. And now an extraordinary phenomenon that goes by the name of James Fotopoulos. He works in Chicago, far from the publicity and compromise of the cinematic mainstream, on budgets small enough to buy him complete artistic freedom. Although not yet thirty years old, this prolific artist has already created a body of work large enough to match and even exceed, what many filmmakers produce in their entire lifetimes. So far, in addition to parallel careers in painting and music, he has made around sixty films and videos; many of them feature-length, and the large majority shot over the past four years. None of these works is without interest and at least a dozen of them are either masterpieces or come very close to being so. Although gaining an increasing profile in the American art world, Fotopoulos's cinema still seems all but unknown on our side of the Atlantic. That this neglect be redressed is in the interests of anyone whose vision of the moving image extends beyond or falls outside the limitations of multiplex entertainment.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 99