Jail Bird in a Peacock Chair

Deutschland USA 2021 Experimentalfilm

Summary

James Gregory Atkinson's performative short film centers the history of the iconic Peacock Chair to interrogate contemporary social contexts and historical concepts of identities. The film engages the chair's origins in forced prison labor in the Philippines, its status as an internationally traded "exotic" commodity, its use in portrait photography, and its associations with Black radical activists such as Huey P. Newton—to explore ideas of Black masculinities and resistance.

Through its filmic choreography of body and architecture, this work interweaves a nonlinear, experimental commentary on the American prison-industrial complex and the concept of the panopticon, and reflects both individual and governmental states of emergency.

Source: 72. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)

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Credits

All Credits

Director of photography

Assistant camera

Titles / Opticals

Dolly grip

Production design

Costume design

Sound design

Music

in association with

Unit production manager

Duration:
4 min
Format:
DCP
Video/Audio:
Farbe, Ton
Screening:

Erstaufführung (DE): 16.02.2022, Berlin, IFF - Forum Expanded

Titles

  • Originaltitel (DE US) Jail Bird in a Peacock Chair

Versions

Original

Duration:
4 min
Format:
DCP
Video/Audio:
Farbe, Ton
Screening:

Erstaufführung (DE): 16.02.2022, Berlin, IFF - Forum Expanded