Lorenzo's profile
My name is Lorenzo Gattorna and I am a filmmaker and programmer originally from New York now residing in Baltimore. I received a BFA from Tisch School of the Arts in 2007. My short films have screened at festivals and galleries worldwide including Antimatter, ARKIPEL, Balagan Film Series, Camera Club of New York, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Colour Out of Space, EMP Collective, Galerie Myrtis, Haverhill Experimental Film Festival, Howard County Center for the Arts, Images Contre Nature, LMAKprojects, Les Rencontres Internationales, Maryland Film Festival, Maysles Cinema, MICA, Microlights, Microscope Gallery, Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival, PLUG Projects, Regional Support Network, Sonic Circuits, Spectacle Theater, The Nightingale, Transient Visions, TULCA, UnionDocs, VIDEOMEDEJA and Views from the Avant-Garde. I have presented visiting artist lectures at NYU's Experimental Film Workshop, JHU's Short Filmmaking Laboratory and UIC's Topics in Video I. I have programmed screenings for Anthology Film Archives, Antimatter [Media Art], Maysles Cinema, Spectacle Theater and UnionDocs. Recently I received the 2012 Creative Alliance Media Makers' Fellowship and was selected as a Semi-Finalist for the 2013 Sondheim Prize as well as the 2014 Trawick Prize. Currently I am the Co-founder and Co-director of a nomadic entity in Baltimore known as Sight Unseen, showcasing avant-garde film, video and expanded cinema. It is supported by Artists Public Domain, MICA and The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.
My small gauge, short form films converge upon avant-garde and documentary modes in cinema, swaying amidst the traditions of direct observation and speculative fiction. These ethereal travelogues attempt to expose mystical revelations through observational phenomena, and remain therapeutic reflections upon such bizarre and beautiful tumult as reciprocation, relocation and remembrance. I am absolutely fascinated by the interaction of estrangement and cognition. My intuitive responses share screen time with structuralist tendencies through a polyvalent montage inspired by experimental, diarist filmmaker, Warren Sonbert. I realize how a shot may either match or contrast with other shots in terms of saturation, grain structure, the screen orientation of object, the direction of camera movement or even stasis thereof. Science fiction specialist, Judith Merril, speaks about speculative fiction much the way I see it as the mode that makes use of the traditional scientific method to examine some postulated approximation of reality. By introducing a given set of changes – imaginary or inventive – into the known background, an environment is created wherein the impressions of the viewers will reveal something about the inventions, the characters or both. Another burgeoning aspect of my filmmaking is found in musical accompaniment with classical composers as well as noise musicians. These soundtracks echo the aforementioned attributes of objectivity and speculation through time-honored and open-minded compositions, respectively.
My small gauge, short form films converge upon avant-garde and documentary modes in cinema, swaying amidst the traditions of direct observation and speculative fiction. These ethereal travelogues attempt to expose mystical revelations through observational phenomena, and remain therapeutic reflections upon such bizarre and beautiful tumult as reciprocation, relocation and remembrance. I am absolutely fascinated by the interaction of estrangement and cognition. My intuitive responses share screen time with structuralist tendencies through a polyvalent montage inspired by experimental, diarist filmmaker, Warren Sonbert. I realize how a shot may either match or contrast with other shots in terms of saturation, grain structure, the screen orientation of object, the direction of camera movement or even stasis thereof. Science fiction specialist, Judith Merril, speaks about speculative fiction much the way I see it as the mode that makes use of the traditional scientific method to examine some postulated approximation of reality. By introducing a given set of changes – imaginary or inventive – into the known background, an environment is created wherein the impressions of the viewers will reveal something about the inventions, the characters or both. Another burgeoning aspect of my filmmaking is found in musical accompaniment with classical composers as well as noise musicians. These soundtracks echo the aforementioned attributes of objectivity and speculation through time-honored and open-minded compositions, respectively.
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