Division Avenue

A sensory city symphony exploring urban space around the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway

Division Avenue (2014) is an experimental short film about one of the most prominent yet often ignored landmarks of New York, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Examining the architecture and fabric of the highway through poetic imagery and experimental ambient sound recordings, the film reveals traces of lives lived in the shadow of the massive concrete sculpture. Built through densely inhabited neighborhoods, the modernist highway of the controversial city planner Robert Moses reshaped and disrupted the city forever, creating vast non-spaces within once thriving communities. Division Avenue invites the audience to encounter urban landscape in a unique and curious way.

Director’s Statement

Division Avenue was born from the sense of astonishment and wonder that three foreign filmmakers had for the urban infrastructure of New York. Influenced by the diverse backgrounds of these recent immigrants, the film is a poetic mood-piece that utilizes psychogeographic filmmaking and essay structure to make abstract an uneventful landscape into a sensory wonderland. The filmmakers quiet observations of a ‘non-space’ aim to prompt questions of aesthetics and beauty, power and urban planning, and of human life inundated by concrete and metal.

— Anne-Katrine Hansen & Janna Kyllästinen

Team

Anne-Katrine Hansen

Anne-Katrine Hansen

Anne-Katrine Hansen is a Danish filmmaker and visual anthropologist. She is interested in how people acquire and express knowledge and make meaning of their experiences. Her films often explore the sensory realms, with special attention to sound. She holds a MA in visual anthropology from The University of Manchester, and she was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

Janna Kyllästinen

Janna Kyllästinen

Janna Kyllästinen is a Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker and editor originally from Helsinki, Finland. Through her films, she combines her desire to tell true stories with a distinct sensitivity for the psychological and emotional. She holds a Master’s degree in political history from the University of Helsinki, and was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

Alexandra Lazarowich

Alexandra Lazarowich

Alexandra Lazarowich is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker originally from Canada. She makes films concerning the conditions of the lives of Aboriginal people in today’s world. With a background in history studies and being a descendant of the Cree people, she is currently researching a film about the effects of colonization on the Aboriginal people and their culture.

Stanzi Vaubel

Stanzi Vaubel

Stanzi Vaubel studied radio and documentary film at Northwestern University. She worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she designed an interactive doc for teens, WNYC’s culture desk and WBEZ’s Re:sound. Her work has been spotlighted by The Third Coast Audio and her film on Occupy Wall Street won Directors choice at the Black Maria Film Festival. During 2013-2014 she produced a radio series called The Gift for Chicago Public Radio. Currently, she is in post-production on her first feature film, This Place. In fall 2014, she will start a graduate teaching fellowship at University at Buffalo’s Media Studies Department.

John Larson

John Larson

Born and raised in South Dakota, John Larson is a photographer and filmmaker who graduated from the University of South Dakota with a BA in Journalism and Media in 2011. Currently, he is based Brooklyn, New York and working as the Studio Manager at Kitty Guerilla Films. Previously, he worked as an associate producer and cinematographer on the ITVS and Sundance Channel funded feature-length documentary Warrior Women.

Anne-Katrine Hansen

Anne-Katrine Hansen

Anne-Katrine Hansen is a Danish filmmaker and visual anthropologist. She is interested in how people acquire and express knowledge and make meaning of their experiences. Her films often explore the sensory realms, with special attention to sound. She holds a MA in visual anthropology from The University of Manchester, and she was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

Janna Kyllästinen

Janna Kyllästinen

Janna Kyllästinen is a Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker and editor originally from Helsinki, Finland. Through her films, she combines her desire to tell true stories with a distinct sensitivity for the psychological and emotional. She holds a Master’s degree in political history from the University of Helsinki, and was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

Alexandra Lazarowich

Alexandra Lazarowich

Alexandra Lazarowich is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker originally from Canada. She makes films concerning the conditions of the lives of Aboriginal people in today’s world. With a background in history studies and being a descendant of the Cree people, she is currently researching a film about the effects of colonization on the Aboriginal people and their culture.

Stanzi Vaubel

Stanzi Vaubel

Stanzi Vaubel studied radio and documentary film at Northwestern University. She worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she designed an interactive doc for teens, WNYC’s culture desk and WBEZ’s Re:sound. Her work has been spotlighted by The Third Coast Audio and her film on Occupy Wall Street won Directors choice at the Black Maria Film Festival. During 2013-2014 she produced a radio series called The Gift for Chicago Public Radio. Currently, she is in post-production on her first feature film, This Place. In fall 2014, she will start a graduate teaching fellowship at University at Buffalo’s Media Studies Department.

John Larson

John Larson

Born and raised in South Dakota, John Larson is a photographer and filmmaker who graduated from the University of South Dakota with a BA in Journalism and Media in 2011. Currently, he is based Brooklyn, New York and working as the Studio Manager at Kitty Guerilla Films. Previously, he worked as an associate producer and cinematographer on the ITVS and Sundance Channel funded feature-length documentary Warrior Women.

Credits

A film by Anne-Katrine Hansen & Janna Kyllästinen

Producer: Alexandra Lazarowich
Cello: Stanzi Vaubel

Additional Photography: John Larson
Re-recording Mixer: Michael Cacioppo Belantara
Credits and Color Grading: Maria Klarlund
Project mentor: Lynne Sachs

Special Thanks: Caitlin Boyle, Sarah J. Christman, Steve Holmgren, Nathan Kensinger, Emir Lewis, Yael Melamede, Hilk Schellmann, Hemal Trivedi, Chi-hui Yang, Danya Abt, Arisleyda Dilone, Damon Logan, Alexander Michalka, Samanth Richardson, Joshua Schneider, Elizabeth Warren, Daniel J Wilson, Joyce Wong, Chloe Zimmerman

UnionDocs Collaborative Studio Director: Toby Lee

UnionDocs Artistic Director: Christopher Allen

2013-2014 Collaborative Fellows: Alexandra Lazarowich, Anne-Katrine Hansen, Arisleyda Dilone, Chloe Zimmerman, Daniel Wilson, Danya Abt, Elizabeth Warren, Janna Kyllästinen, John Larson, Joyce Wong, Samantha Richardson, Stanzi Vaubel

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