Personal Effects

2024 | NR | 60 min | DCP

Presented in cooperation with Gallery Bergen

The artist and filmmaker Gregg Biermann makes sculptural and intellectually playful work that transforms images from Hollywood and other mainstream media. His art is currently featured in an exhibition at Bergen Gallery. A few years ago, Biermann had a near-death calamity in when his heart suddenly stopped. Recovering from an experience that only one in ten people survive, Biermann realized that “death challenges who we think we are and how we tend to think about ourselves.” His engaging and remarkably inventive film Personal Effects (2024, one hour) uses animation, and a wide range of cinematic techniques to illustrate his interior monologue, creating an intimate essay on death, time, the mind and other perplexing philosophical topics. Biermann will present the film, along with his short Quartet for the End (2023, 14 mins.), which creates a kaleidoscopic reworking of a climactic scene from James Cameron’s Titanic.

The screenings will be followed by a conversation with Biermann and Barrymore Film Center film programmer David Schwartz.