Jessica McGoff

Videomaker, visual artist and activist belit sağ discusses the inexorable link between image-making and violence Feature by Jessica McGoff | 07 Sep 2021 “What is the role, what is the function of the image?” In conversation with video maker and visual artist belit sağ, she describes this question as one that sustains, or perhaps incites, her practice.

“This movie is about the end of the world,” director Marnie Ellen Hertzler tells us in the opening minutes of Crestone. The images that accompany this statement show a group of Soundcloud rappers in a neon-lit room, smoking weed and watching their own music videos. This isn’t a familiar rendering of the apocalypse: there’s no religious prophecy, cosmic event, or natural disaster. Not a bang nor a whimper, just a rap beat. Here in the desert of Crestone, Colorado, it’s not the end of the world.

Jessica McGoff was a participant on this year's Film Critics Day workshop at the Cinema Rediscovered film festival in Bristol and Clevedon in the U.K., a celebration of the finest new digital restorations, contemporary classics and film print rarities from across the globe. Further examples of the writing from the workshop, as well as information about the program, can be found on the Cinema Rediscovered Blog. Tracey Moffatt’s BeDevil (1993) is a beguiling work.