Lynne Sachs facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lynne Sachs
Lynne Sachs in May 2022
Born	1961 Memphis, Tennessee
Nationality	American
Occupation	Filmmaker
Known for	Experimental film, documentary film, media arts
Spouse(s)	Mark Street

Lynne Sachs (born in 1961) is an American filmmaker and poet. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her films are very creative and include documentaries, essay films, and short experimental movies. She also creates live performances.

Lynne Sachs often looks at society and personal feelings in her work. She uses old videos and photos, performances, and interesting sounds in her films. From 2013 to 2020, she worked with musician Stephen Vitiello on five films.

Early Life and Education

Lynne Sachs went to Brown University. She studied history and art there. She became interested in making experimental documentaries in 1985. This happened after she attended a special film seminar. She was inspired by filmmakers like Bruce Conner and Maya Deren. Bruce Conner later became her mentor.

She took her first film classes in New York City. Later, she moved to San Francisco. There, she studied at San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute. In San Francisco, she worked with other filmmakers like George Kuchar and Trinh T. Minh-ha. During this time, she started making her early films. These films often explored ideas from a feminist point of view. This way of thinking has been important in all her work since then.

Her Filmmaking Career

Early Films (1989 – early 2000s)

After finishing her studies, Lynne Sachs went back to her hometown of Memphis in 1989. She filmed Sermons and Sacred Pictures there. This was her first long documentary. The film tells the story of Reverend L. O. Taylor. He was an African-American minister and filmmaker in the 1930s and 1940s. This film was shown at the Museum of Modern Art.

From 1994 to 2006, Sachs made films in places around the world. These places had faced big challenges. Her films and online projects show the "limits of how we usually tell stories about the past and present." She made five films in this style. They are called the I Am Not A War Photographer series.

In 2007, a film festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina, showed many of her films. That same year, she worked with filmmaker Chris Marker. She helped him remake his short film Three Cheers for the Whale. In 2008, she returned to Argentina. She filmed her first story-based project there, called Wind in Our Hair. It was inspired by stories from Julio Cortázar.

In 2008, the New York Public Library asked Lynne Sachs to create an online art project. It was called Abecedarium NYC. This project is like an online alphabet. It has short films made by Sachs and other artists. These films represent unusual words. The project also lets people join in and share their own ideas online.

Recent Work (2010–present)

In 2010, Lynne Sachs worked with her brother, Ira Sachs. They adapted his short film Last Address into an outdoor art display. It was shown on the sides of the Kimmel Center in New York City. The piece was a tribute to artists from New York who are no longer with us.

In 2013, Sachs finished a film called Your Day is My Night. This film features people living in a special apartment in New York City's Chinatown. They share their stories of big changes in their lives. The film was shown at the Museum of Modern Art. It also played at many other film festivals. A reviewer from The Nation magazine called it "a striking, thoughtful work."

Between 2013 and 2020, she worked with sound artist Stephen Vitiello on five films. These include Your Day is My Night and Film About a Father Who. In 2021, a film group in Los Angeles celebrated their teamwork.

From 2014 to 2017, Sachs worked with writer Lizzie Olesker. They created live performances called Every Fold Matters. These shows explored the everyday life of neighborhood laundromats. They also looked at the people who work there. Sachs and Olesker interviewed laundry workers in New York City. They then made a film called The Washing Society (2018). This film was shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

In 2019, Lynne Sachs published a book of her poems called Year by Year Poems.

In 2020, her documentary Film About a Father Who was shown. It was the opening film at the Slamdance Film Festival. This film received great reviews. The New York Times called it "a brisk, colorful, and very personal family portrait."

Awards and Recognitions

Lynne Sachs's work has received support from many groups. These include the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts. In 2014, Sachs received a special award called a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for her film and video work.

Her films have been shown at many famous places. These include the Museum of Modern Art and the Sundance Film Festival.

Many film festivals have shown a collection of her work. These include the Museum of the Moving Image and the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema.

Her 2019 film A Month of Single Frames won a big prize. It won the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2020. In 2021, she received awards for all her work in experimental and documentary films.

Teaching and Academia

Lynne Sachs has also taught filmmaking. She has taught at places like New York University and Hunter College.

Films and Other Media

Lynne Sachs likes to tell stories in new and different ways in her films, not always in a straight timeline.