Michael Jacobsohn's Films
Films Are Available For Viewing
Young Braves (1968, 9 mins) is a raw and intimate portrait of teenage life, following a group of young teenagers through their daily routines of play, mischief, and survival, a candid window into a world that most New Yorkers never saw. The film has screened at major festivals including Tribeca, Oberhausen, and Punto de Vista, and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. It is now part of the permanent collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Additional 16 mm films are available for viewing.
Imaginary Distance (2012, 76 mins) Follows a year in the life of James Garland, a painter and born-again Christian who has chosen to be itinerant. For the past decade, he has survived on his art and his evangelical faith. The film follows James from a beaches of Santa Monica, California to the streets of New York City, with a stopover in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he reunites with family that he has not seen in thirteen years. Along the way, the film raises questions that linger: Is Garland a truly gifted artist, or a deluded wanderer? Is his faith a salvation, or a crutch? Withholding judgment, Imaginary Distance refuses easy answers, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
James&Hugo and Me (2016, 75 Mins) "There's a big difference between just making a living and being happy making a living," says Hugo in this film about comradeship, shared hopes, and the passion to create—no matter what the cost. Filmmaker Jacobsohn (the ‘me’ in the title) has chronicled a year-and-a-half in the lives of these New York City artists. James Garland, an itinerant painter, is a fundamentalist Christian Oklahoman, who has befriended Hugo Muñoz, a Mexican guitarist, painter, and printmaker."
The Art of Edward Ching (2018, 32 mins) Explores the life and art of New Yorker Edward Ching, whose oeuvre consists largely of cityscapes painted outdoors. As he paints, passersby witness Edward morph into Bruce Lee: attacking the canvas with paints and brushes, jabbing, poking, arms swinging, and torso swaying. The youngest of a Chinese father, who created classic Chinese ink wash paintings, and a Latin American mother, Edward is a first generation American. This film delves into his life story as it showcases a true New York artist.
Duet (2019, 77 mins) No wall will stop these dreamers or their passion to create. Hugo Muñoz, a self-taught Mexican string guitarist, discovers his perfect partner in a Czech Republic-bass guitarist, Jana Vaculíková who is here on a student visa. Their pact is to create a theatrical performance comprised of a dozen of Hugo’s highly original compositions. Over the next six months they rehearse profusely in his tiny studio apartment. After their extraordinary successful cabaret debut, Jana’s visa expires. Wistfully, she and Hugo must part, their future together an uncertainty.
Cornelia Street Cafe in Exile (2025, 82 mins) After 41 years of running the Cornelis Street Cafe, Robin Hirsch finds himself in exile. The cafe’s destruction and loss of an important artistic venue is a reminder to Hirsch, second generation Holocaust survivor, of the painful loss that his parents endured having been forced out of Germany. In exile, Hirsch attempts to resurrect what has been lost. The film features an extraordinary gathering of New York's most vital creative voices: poets, jazz musicians, singer-songwriters, playwrights, and performers — including David Amram, Arturo O'Farrill, Suzanne Vega, Eve Ensler, and Roald Hoffmann, among many others.