Bio
Brooklyn film artist Jennifer Reeves (b. 1971, Sri Lanka) has made 25+ filmworks to date, from experimental shorts and features to multiple projection performances scored by live music. Reeves’ visceral 16mm film works immerse viewers in intricate, unfamiliar cinematic territory. They investigate themes of mental health and recovery, feminism and sexuality, and the beauty and decay of the natural world. A Blu-ray collection of 10 of her films will be released by Re:Voir Video late in 2025: “When it was Blue: Jennifer Reeves Selected Works 1992 – 2022”. The collection will be available for streaming in 2026.
Reeves started her life as a film artist in 1990 at Bard College under the tutelage of Peggy Ahwesh, Peter Hutton and Adolfas Mekas. Since 1990 Reeves has shot, written, edited, created optical effects, and designed the soundtracks of her film works: a veritable one-person production unit. Her singular cinematic works push the boundaries of film with optical printing anddirect-on-film techniques that involve painting on, sewing, and burying 16mm film.
Reeves premiered her most recent feature-length work, a dual-projection film performance of THE GLORIA OF YOUR IMAGINATION, at Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive in October 2024. She adapted THE GLORIA OF YOUR IMAGINATION into a single-channel Experimental Documentary to debut at the 51st Seattle International Film Festival in 2025. With support from residencies at Atelier 105 in Paris and Yaddo in New York, Reeves wrote, directed, and edited the project. Reeves has also presented “GLORIA” at Light Matter Film Festival, Arkipel International Documentary and Experimental Film, New Horizons Film Festival in Polandand Vassar College. In November, THE GLORIA OF YOUR IMAGINATION will screen at Kasseler Dokfest in Germany, and it will be featured at an international conference with Jennifer as a presenter “Misogyny Then and Now: Implications for Psychoanalytic Perspectives” co-sponsored by the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and the Committee of Women and Psychoanalysis of the International Psychoanalytic Association. This September, Reeves debuted her latest dual-projection work, LIFE IN DECAY, in a collaborative performance with the Iranian Sound Artist Farzané at Conflux Festival 2025.
Reeves’ many film awards include a FIPRESCI prize at the Berlinale, The Barbara Hammer Feminist Filmmaker Award at Ann Arbor Film Festival, Best New York Narrative Feature at Tribeca Film Festival, Outstanding Artistic Achievement at Outfest, and a nomination for the Someone to Watch Award at The Independent Spirit Awards. Comprehensive retrospectives of Reeves’ work have been hosted by the New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, the San Francisco Cinematheque, Berlin’s Kino Arsenal, and Anthology Film Archives in New York City. Reeves’ work has screened broadly, from the Rotterdam, New York, Sundance and Toronto International Film Festivals to the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery in D.C., the CCCB in Barcelona and at art cinemas and universities worldwide. Reeves has collaborated with celebrated composers including Farzané, Zeena Parkins, Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp and Skúli Sverrisson. Her multiple-projection films with live music have been performed from the Sydney Opera House, Berlin International Film Festival, to RedCat in Los Angeles and the Wexner Center in Ohio.
Reeves has two long-form film projects underway. She is editing CELIA, SHE SAID, an experimental feature focused on Cuban revolutionary Celia Sanchez and her connections to other international revolutionary women. The project was supported by a Princess Grace Awards Special Project grant. FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT is a medium-length 16mm dual-projection work about the islands of the world, lively creatures from sea and sky, and the wilderness inside. The project was inspired by a play with the same title, written by the poet James Whitcomb Riley, Reeves’ great, great uncle.
Reeves has taught film and animation courses at The Cooper Union School of Art since 2005.