Earlier Works (2013-2020)
February 18th, 2022
Filmmakers Jessica Kingdon’s and Nathan Truesdell’s inquisitive films have been exploring the paradoxes of the everyday for almost a decade. Their eventual meeting and collaboration resulted in ASCENSION (2021), a feature documentary on hyper capitalism in modern China, which just received an Oscar nomination! Join us at Shadow Kitchen this month as we take a look back at their earlier works.
Included in our program are Kingdon’s early examinations of place, and interspecies relationships with PIG ROAST, and LOOKING AT ANIMALS. Truesdell’s keen editing of repurposed news, promotional, and reality footage reveal the horrors and unintentional consequences of the spectacle in BALLOONFEST and THE WATER SLIDE.
For their later works, we delve into the inner workings of capitalism with Kingdon’s COMMODITY CITY, and Truesdell’s THE ART OF MAKING MONEY series. Our program culminates with their first directorial collaboration on IT’S COMING!, an unflinching look at the globalized commodification of companionship.
PROGRAM
- PIG ROAST (2013, Jessica Kingdon, 4 min)
- LOOKING AT ANIMALS (2014, Jessica Kingdon, 17 mins)
- BALLOONFEST (2017, Nathan Truesdell, 6 mins)
- COMMODITY CITY (2017, Jessica Kingdon, 11 mins)
- THE WATER SLIDE (2018, Nathan Truesdell, 9 mins)
- THE ART OF MAKING MONEY: “The World’s Greatest Counterfeiter” (2019, Nathan Truesdell, 11 mins)
- IT’S COMING! (2020, Jessica Kingdon & Nathan Truesdell, 9 mins)
Total Running Time: 67 mins
IN PERSON: Jessica Kingdon + Nathan Truesdell!
FILMMAKERS
JESSICA KINGDON
Jessica Kingdon is a Chinese-American director/producer named one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine and selected for the 2020 DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40” list. Her first documentary feature, ASCENSION 登楼叹 (2021) won awards for “Best Documentary” at the Tribeca Festival and Hamptons International Film Festival as well as “Best Editing” at DOC NYC. The film has received nominations from the Spirit Awards, the Gotham and the International Documentary Association, along with five Cinema Eye nominations and six Critic’s Choice nominations. Her work has been supported by organizations including SFFILM, Chicken & Egg, Cinereach, Sundance, Field of Vision, and Firelight Media. Jessica has served in producorial roles on Tania Cypriano’s BORN TO BE (NYFF, 2019), and Johnny Ma’s OLD STONE (Berlinale, 2016). She is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective and Brown Girls Doc Mafia.
NATHAN TRUESDELL
Nathan Truesdell is a multi-hyphenate filmmaker that has spent the last 15 years creating and collaborating on documentary films. He was selected for the inaugural DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40” list. He’s a key collaborator on ASCENSION (2021), as a producer, co-cinematographer, and additional editor. His cinematography credits include being the camera department head for the HBO series HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON (2020), DOPE IS DEATH (True/False, 2020), DEPROGRAMMED (Tribeca, 2015), and KILLING THEM SAFELY (Tribeca, 2015). He’s produced documentaries such as WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS (SXSW, 2013), CAUCUS (Hot Docs, 2013), and co-produced THE GOSPEL OF EUREKA (SXSW, 2018).