Movies: Nathaniel Dorsky

A short portrait of a dear friend and collaborator on Devotional Cinema, Nick Hoff....

In the spirit of the times and my own growing older, a brief tip of the hat… (Nathaniel Dorsky)...

Autumn lake in San Francisco....

"Seven and a half weeks ago, I had open heart surgery...In the three weeks to go before the operation, I bought 21 rolls of film and said 'I'm going to shoot a roll of film every day until I go to the hospital.' ... This film is shot with the overall...

Dorsky’s three earliest works (made when he “entered the realm of poetic filmmaking as an active maker”), all sound films, with dailies for two later works shot on precious Kodachrome stock....

The images in this film come from an extensive collection of out-dated raw stock that has been processed without being exposed, and sometimes rephotographed in closer format. Each pattern of grain takes on its own emotional life, an evocation of diff...

Autumn, photographed during the last months of the drought year, 2015, is a stately, but intimate, seasonal tome, a celebration of the poignancy and mystery of our later years. – Nathaniel Dorsky...

The Kodachrome Dailies consist of all the Kodachrome footage chosen to be worked with to make the film Song and Solitude during years 2005 and 2006. During that period I still had the great privilege to be shooting Kodachrome. My method for editing w...

In 1948, a small, struggling, semi-professional orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky began a novel project to commission new works from contemporary composers around the world....

"Compline is a night devotion or prayer, the last of the canonical hours, the final act in a cycle. This film is also the last film I will be able to shoot in Kodachrome, a film stock I have shot since I was 10 years old. It is a loving duet with and...

"A pastourelle and an aubade are two different forms of courtship songs from the Troubadour tradition. In this case, the film Pastourelle, a sister film to Aubade, is in the more tumultuous key of spring." - Nathaniel Dorsky...

This year our mid-summer’s night was adorned with a glorious full moon. The weeks and days preceding the solstice were magically alive with crisp, cool breezes, bright, warm sunlight, and a general sense of heartbreaking clarity. The Dreamer is born ...

“The title Apricity refers to the warmth of the sun in winter. It is an homage to the writer Jane (Brakhage) Wodening. In speaking to her I mused, ‘perhaps your age is the winter and you are the warmth of the sun.’” –Nathaniel Dorsky...

Shot in San Francisco from autumn of last year through the winter solstice, Nathaniel Dorsky's Song evinces a cool, mysterious tone as it captures the pulse (supernal at 18fps) of the city....

Emanations is the third film made during the COVID crises… in this case October and November reveal small joys in a melancholic sea....

How often and varied we come upon ourselves in this brief life. This film of early spring is a second made in collaboration with Jacob, a young filmmaking friend who also appeared in Naos. N.D....

A bouquet from those final arid days of summer....

"Lamentations is a cinematic tumble through diverse dreamscapes in a man-made world." —N.D....

A Naos is the inner room of an ancient Greek temple in which the image of the deity celebrated by that temple is depicted (usually in the form of a statue of that deity). Jacob, a young filmmaker, offered to help me with some shooting and became the ...

These four films spontaneously manifested as four stages of life: childhood, youth, maturity and old age. Elohim was photographed in early spring, the week of the Lunar New Year, the very spirit of Creation. Abaton was photographed a few weeks later ...