Ken Paul Rosenthal makes film to cultivate a more participatory relationship with the animate world, and build community through live, conscious dialogue. His early body of experimental films employs organic, photochemical, and direct manipulation techniques. Rosenthal’s recent projects weave personal and political narratives into the poetic lyricism of landscape films.

Ken’s films have screened nationally from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco) to the New York City MOMA, and internationally from the Images Contre Nature International Festival of Experimental Video (France) to the Museu do Chiado Museum of Contemporary Art (Portugal). He has had solo exhibitions at the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema (New York) the Blinding Light Cinema (Canada), the Adelaide Fringe Festival (Australia), and the U-Theque (China).

Among Rosenthal’s awards are a Kodak Award for Cinematography, the Leo Diner Award for Innovative Filmmaking and the John Gutmann Award for Experimental Film from San Francisco State University, where he earned an MA in Creative and Interdisciplinary Arts and an MFA in Cinema Production. Ken was a visiting lecturer for two years at the Center for Film and Media Studies at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore, presently teaches at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and is a faculty member at City College of San Francisco. Over the past 15 years, he has conducted over 100 hand-processing workshops, and curated four programs of hand-made film called Texture of the Gesture.

His films are available for rental as 16mm prints through Canyon Cinema, and for purchase through the artist and Micro Cinema International.

Rosenthal’s in-progress social justice documentary, Crooked Beauty, explores positive and compassionate models for transforming the experience of madness in our culture.

Selected Exhibitions

Festivals
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Black Maria Film Festival – Director’s Citation, 2007
34th Athens International Film & Video Festival, 2007
29th Mill Valley International Film Festival, 2006
Images Contre Nature Festival Experimental Video, Marseilles, France, 2006
43rd Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2005
CSU Media Arts Festival, Channel Islands, California – Kodak Award Cinematography/
    Rosebud Award Experimental, 2004
20th Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema, San Francisco, 2004
Intinerant Cinemascape Festival– National Touring Program, 2004
34th Poetry International Festival, Rotterdam, 2003
19th Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema, San Francisco, 2003
27th Cine Poem Festival, San Francisco, California, 2003
Humboldt International Film Festival, Film Arts Foundation Award, 2002
3rd Sarah Lawrence Experimental Film & Video Festival, Bronxville, NY, 2002
Video Ex Festival, Zurich, Switzerland, 2002
Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, Germany, Honorable Mention, 2001
14th Singapore International Film Festival, 2001
1st Telluride International Experimental Cinema Exposition, 2000
29th Rotterdam International Film Festival, 1999
6th Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival, 1999
Global 8 Day, Switzerland, 1999
1st Splice This! Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, 1998
2nd Super Super 8 Festival – International Touring Program, 1998
Ann Arbor Film Festival, Jury Award Experimental Process, 1996

Group Shows
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New Langton Arts, San Francisco –Terra Incognita III, 2007
University of New Mexico – Experiments in Cinema v2, 2007
Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco – Schematics from a Memory Grid, 2005
SF Arts Commission, San Francisco – A Trip Down Market 1905/2005, 2005
Exploratorium, San Francisco – Filmmakers Who Transgress the Boundaries, 2003
Museu do Chiado, Museum of Contemporary Cinema, Lisbon – Intermittent, 2003
Guangzhou Fine Art College, Guangzhou, China, 2003
Art Museum, University of Houston – Collaborating With the Moving Image, 2003
ICON Digital Salon, New York City – auto:IDENTITY, 2003
SF Camerawork, San Francisco – Self/Projected: Moving Image As Self Portrait, 2003
Eyedrum, Atlanta – Cameraless Films, 2003
Artists Television Access, San Francisco – Penumbra, 2002
Image Movement Cinematheque, Taipei, China, 2001
Chinese Taipai Film Archive – Alchemy of Film; Chemical Collision, 2001
San Francisco Cinematheque – New Terrain; Recent Additions to Canyon Cinema, 2001
Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, New York – A Night of Films Handmade, 2000
Anthology Film Archives, New York City – What’s New in the Avant Garde, 1998
Other Cinema, San Francisco – New Experimental Works, 1998
Museum of Modern Art, NYC – Big As Life: An American History of 8mm Film, 1997
The Lab, San Francisco – Projection Art Lab, 1997
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco – Hand Crafting Mystery, 1996
Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, New York – A Night of Films Handmade, 1996