Zoe Beloff: Two Recent Films

NYC-based media archeologist Zoe Beloff joins us to screen two of her latest films—both set in the artist's Lower East Side neighborhood, both looking at its history as a place of immigrants and at different ways that popular entertainment brings people together.

Set in New York's Lower East Side in the early years of the twentieth century, Life Forgotten (2025, 16mm film shown on DV) centers on a real storefront cinema—Frank Seiden's Variety Theater—where silent movies were presented with improvised dialog and Yiddish ballads by Frank and his sons to an audience that didn't hesitate to join in or argue back. It was a welcoming space for women and the film follows a group of radical young garment workers who gather here to figure out how to fight for women's rights and change their world. Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People (2025, DV) is a work of remembrance that asks but does not answer the question how does everyday art bring people together? One by one, the community that is the Mouse People, recite the text of Franz Kafka's short story in quiet places on New York's Lower East Side. The film presents Josephine's story, as something transmitted across time, something that comes from inside the body of an oppressed people; spoken alone, summoned mysteriously, at the edge of consciousness. Why was it that Josephine's voice so captivated them?

SHAPESHIFTERS CINEMA provides a venue and support for contemporary artists working with experimental and artist-made film, video, sound, music and other types of mediated performance. We host screenings and performances by local and visiting artists in our intimate 40-seat theatre and offer workshops on a variety of experimental and DIY moving image and sound production. Our storefront shop specializes in print publications, DVDs, sound recordings and other kinds of media made by artists who have screened or performed in our venue. shapeshifterscinema.com

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