Adam Kossoff Explained

Adam Kossoff is a British filmmaker and artist.

Early life and education

Dr. Adam Kossoff was born in London. He gained a degree in film and photography at the Polytechnic of Central London (now University of Westminster) in 1980. In 2008 he was awarded his PhD, 'On Terra Firma: Space, Place and the Moving Image', by the Royal College of Art.^[1]

Career

Kossoff began his career working as a playwright, with plays performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Soho Theatre and at Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Kossoff then worked in the film and TV industry for a number of years, writing and directing documentaries and drama films.^[2] He made several films for Channel 4 including East Enders Against the Grain (1988), on the representation of the East End of London in film, Arm in Arm Together (1989),^[3] about Anglo-Soviet relations and home front propaganda during World War 11, and Turbulence (1992), starring Kelly Marcel and Cathy Tyson, that looked at the issue of family sexual abuse.

From 2004-2021, Kossoff was a Reader in Film in the School of Art at the University of Wolverhampton.^[4] He has written for various journals ^{[5] [6]} and edited books, mainly focusing on issues of praxis and technics in the work of Walter Benjamin and Bernard Stiegler.^[7]

Kossoff has made experimental and essayistic films that have been screened at galleries and international film festivals:

• Moscow Diary (2012), filmed on a mobile phone, retraced the footsteps of Walter Benjamin's 1926-27 Moscow Diary.^[8]
• Made in Wolverhampton (2012), narrated by Sean Foley, it explored the melancholic identity and the changing nature of place and space in an English post-industrial city.^[9]
• The Anarchist Rabbi (2015), narrated by Steven Berkoff, focused on the East End haunts of German-born anarchist Rudolf Rocker.^{[10] [11] [12]}
• One Or The Other (2017), an essay film looking issues around the homeland and the nation state in Israel and Palestine.^[13]
• Through the Bloody Mists Of Time (2020), narrated by Esther Leslie, uses a slowed down 9.5 mm film film of the 1937 Paris Exhibition featuring an imaginary voice-over dialogue between Walter Benjamin and Humphrey Jennings.
• Jackals and Arabs (by Franz Kafka) (2022) narrated by Mohammad Bakri.
• In The Loop of History (2020), an archival essay, is concerned with nationhood and history as myth in Israel-Palestine.

Selected filmography

• 2024 Walking Backwards
• 2022 Downstream ^[14]
• 2022 Jackals and Arabs ^[15]
• 2020 In The Loop of History ^[16]
• 2019 Through The Bloody Mists Of Time ^[17]
• 2017 One Or The Other
• 2015 The Anarchist Rabbi ^[18]
• 2015 How They Hate Us
• 2014 Animal Architecture ^[19]
• 2011 Made In Wolverhampton ^[20]
• 2011 Moscow Diary ^[21]

References

1. Web site: Mazier . Michael . 8 December 2008 . [file:///Users/kasia/Desktop/AVPHD_LRG_PRINT[1].pdf Viva ]. 13 August 2024 . Viva Viva.
2. Web site: Kossoff . Adam . 23 July 2024 . FEINART . 23 July 2024 . The Future of European Independent Art Spaces In A Period of Socially Engaged Art.
3. Web site: British Film Institute . BFI . 13 August 2024 . Collections British Film Institute . 13 August 2024 . Collections Search BFI.
4. Web site: Kossoff . Adam . 23 July 2024 . FEINART . 23 July 2024 . The Future of Independent Art Spaces In a Period of Socially Engaged Art.
5. Kossoff . Adam . Spatial location and the relative thinness of the image . Journal of Media Practice . 9 . 3 . 257-269 . Taylor and Francis Online.
6. Web site: Kossoff . Adam . 11 January 2011 . RUING THE RUINS . 23 July 2024 . Mute.
7. Web site: Kossoff . Adam . 23 July 2024 . The Mobile Phone and the Flow of Things . 23 July 2024 . SpringerLink.
8. Web site: Prouty . Richard . 24 May 2012 . Moscow Diary Redux . 4 July 2024 . One Way Street Aesthetics and Politics.
9. Web site: Wilson . Mark . 14 March 2012 . Mmm, maps: filming locations and locations of films . 4 July 2024 . Still Walking.
10. Web site: Kinna . Ruth . November 2014 . The Anarchist Rabbi . 4 July 2024 . ProQuest.
11. Web site: Sandhu . Sukhdev . October 2014 . Sight & Sound: the November 2014 issue . 4 July 2024 . BFI.
12. Book: Porton, Richard . Film and the Anarchist Imagination . University of Illinois Press . 2020 . 978-0252085246 . 2nd . 240-241 . English.
13. Web site: Taylor . Meredith . 17 April 2018 . One or the Other (2017) East End Film Festival 2018 . 4 July 2024 . Filmforia.
14. Web site: ICA | Shorts Programme: Thinking Around and Outside. www.ica.art.
15. Web site: Kossoff . Adam . 23 July 2024 . Jackals and Arabs (by Franz Kafka) . 23 July 2024 . Vimeo.
16. Web site: In The Loop of History on Vimeo.
17. Web site: Walter Benjamin and Humphrey Jennings: Through the Bloody Mists of Time.
18. Web site: The Anarchist Rabbi excerpt on Vimeo.
19. Web site: Animal Architecture by Adam Kossoff. wolverhamptonart.org.uk.
20. Web site: Mmm, maps: filming locations and locations of films. March 14, 2012. Still Walking.
21. Web site: MOSCOW DIARY – FIDMarseille.

External links

• Video discussion - Adam Kossoff and Esther Leslie Walter Benjamin and Humphrey Jennings: Through the Bloody Mists of Time
• Vimeo - Adam Kossoff home page
• Vimeo Trailer - Through the Bloody Mists Of Time (2020)
• DVDs Trilogy