J.P. Sniadecki
J.P. Sniadecki
Master Classes
Visiting Lecturer (2016)
J.P. Sniadecki is a filmmaker and anthropologist active in the United States and China, whose work explores collective experience, sensory ethnography, and the possibilities of cinema.
An affiliate of the Sensory Ethnography Lab, he holds a PhD in Social Anthropology with Media from Harvard. He currently teaches in the Documentary Media MFA program at Northwestern University.
His films have screened at festivals such as the Berlinale, Locarno, American Film Institute, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Cinema du Reel, Torino, Viennale, HOTDOCS, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, BAFICI, RIDM, FICUNAM, and DOChina as well as at venues such as New York’s MoMA and Guggenheim, Vienna’s MAC, Beijing’s UCCA, the 2014 Shanghai Biennale, and the 2014 Whitney Biennale.
His filmography includes Chaiqian/Demolition (2010), winner of the Joris Ivens Award; Foreign Parts (2010), winner of two Leopards at Locarno and named Best Film at the Punto de Vista Film Festival and DocsBarcelona; People’s Park (2012), named Best Anthropological Film at Festival dei Popoli; and Yumen (2013), named Best Experimental Film and Best Chinese Film at the Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival. Sniadecki’s latest feature, The Iron Ministry (2014), was A.O. Scott's "Critics Pick" in the New York Times and has screened widely and garnered jury prizes at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the Valdivia and Camden International Film Festivals.
Coorganizer of the traveling film series “Cinema on the Edge" which showcases independent cinema from China, he has written articles and interviews for Cinema Scope and contributed essays to Visual Anthropology Review and the edited volume DV-Made China (Hawaii University Press).