Born in Chicago on May 16, 1943, of a military
family, Jon Jost grew up in Georgia, Kansas, Japan, Italy, Germany and
Virginia. Expelled from college in 1962, he began making 16mm films
in January, 1963. He is self-taught. He has made some 20 shorts and
14 feature length films, all of which he has conceived, written, photographed,
directed and edited; most of these he also produced. Since 1996 he has
worked primarily in Digital Video (DV), completing twelve full-length works
and many shorts, as well as one large-scale installation in this medium
as of 2003.
In 1965 Jost was imprisoned by US Federal authorities for 2 years and
3 months for refusal to cooperate with the Selective Service system.
On release, he quickly became engaged in political activities, helping
to start the Chicago branch of what became Newsreel, the New Left film
production and distribution group, as well as working for the draft
resistance and the Chicago Mobilization. He also participated in establishing
the Chicago Film Coop, and was a member of the Board of Directors of
Canyon Coop in 1970.
Jost made his first feature-length film in 1974, and has since devoted
himself to the making of a wide-ranging series of films, largely focused
on specifically American topics, in forms ranging from essays (Speaking
Directly, Stagefright, and Uncommon Senses), to essay/fictions (Angel
City) to avant-garde and "new narrative." His work has shown
widely in museums, film archives, and festivals since 1975. The Museum
of Modern Art, New York, presented a complete retrospective of Jost's
work in January 1991. This show subsequently traveled to the J.F.Kennedy
Center, Washington DC, the Harvard Film Archive, the UCLA Film Archive,
The Film Arts Foundation of San Francisco, as well as to the Bergamo
Film Meeting 1993, the Viennale festival 1993, the Bologna and Torino
Film Archives in Italy (1995). Most recently his films were accorded
full retrospectives at the Cinemateca Portuguese (1996) and the Filmoteca
Español (1997).
His films have been purchased for television broadcast and/or for cinema
distribution in the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Hungry,
Russia, and Japan .
Prints of his films are held in the archives of The Museum of Modern
Art, NY; the British Film Institute, the Freunde der deutschen Kinemathek,
The Royal Film Archive of Belgium, the Cinemateca Portuguese, the Filmoteca
Español, the Bologna Archive, the National Film Library of Australia
(Canberra), the Yamagata Festival of Japan, and the Istituto Luce, Rome.
Jost has been recipient of numerous grants, including two Deutsche
Akademischer Austauschdienst Berlin Fellowships (1979; 1985); an NEA
UK-US Exchange Fellowship (1980); two NEA Media Production Grants (1985;
1989); a Guggenheim Fellowship (1989); a NYSCA Production Grant (1989)
and other minor grants.
His films have won numerous awards, including the Caligari Film Prize
at the Berlin Festival 1991 for All the Vermeers in New York and Sure
Fire. Vermeers received the Los Angeles Critics award for Best Independent
Film 1992.
In March 1991 Jost was honored, along with Producer Edward Pressman,
with the IFP/West's first "John Casavettes Lifetime Achievement
Award" for independent filmmaking.
In March, 2000, he received the "Maverick Spirit Award,"
at the San Jose-based independent "Maverick" festival.
Mr. Jost was invited by the DOCUMENTA X, 1997, arts exposition of Kassel
Germany, to make a full-length work of his own choice with the support
of Documenta and SONY, for presentation in June 1997; owing to the total
failure of Documenta to provide the originally promised funding, Mr.
Jost withdrew from participation just prior to June 1997
Mr. Jost is presently Professor at the Graduate School of Communications and Arts, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea.
Next page
1 | 2 | 3
| 4
