Edward Owens (filmmaker)

As a teenager, Owens, a resident of Chicago's South Side, spent his free time experimenting with 8mm film. He went on to study painting and sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). There he met the experimental filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos, who had founded the school's film program. Markopoulos was impressed with Owens' film work and urged him to move to New York City, which he did in 1966. In New York, Markpoulous became a mentor for Owens, introducing him to influential figures in filmmaking and art such as Andy Warhol, Gerard Malanga, Marie Menken, Gregory Battcock and Charles Boultenhouse.

In 1971, after making a few portrait style films in New York and successfully entering the film scene, Owens moved back to Chicago.{{Cite web|url=https://www.lafilmforum.org/archive/winter-2019/private-imaginings-the-films-of-edward-owens/|title=Private Imaginings: The Films of Edward Owens|last=|first=|date=|website=Los Angeles Film Forum|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}} He ended his film career at the young age of 20, when his self-proclaimed drug addiction and undiagnosed bipolar disorder began to take their toll.{{Cite web|url=https://tiff.net/events/private-imaginings-the-films-of-edward-owens|title=Private Imaginings: The Films of Edward Owens|website=TIFF|language=en|access-date=2020-03-06}} The films that now survive from Owen's body of work are three experimental films that he made as an 18-year-old entering New York's underground film community.{{Cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/5066|title=Private Imaginings: The Films of Edward Owens|last=|first=|date=January 21, 2019|website=MoMa|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215053243/https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/5066 |archive-date=2018-12-15 |access-date=}} A fourth surviving title, Autre Fois J'ai Aime Une Femme (1966), was preserved through state-of-the-art 5K digital transfer, facilitated by MM Serra of The Film-Makers' Cooperative along with Owens' three other films.{{Cite web|url=https://film-makerscoop.com/filmmakers/edward-owens/bio|title=Edward Owens|last=|first=|date=July 1, 2021|website=Film-makerscoop|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709181834/https://film-makerscoop.com/filmmakers/edward-owens/bio |archive-date=2021-07-09 |access-date=}}

Owens' films can characterized by their painterly approach and personal feel.{{Cite web|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/soul-nation-art-age-black-power/how-it-feels-be-free/portrait-study|title=How It Feels To Be Free: A Portrait Study|date=July 22, 2017|website=Tate|access-date=February 28, 2018}} His films from 1966 to 1970 displayed growth within mastering a form. Originally inspired by Markopoulous' own style, Owens was able to create something within his own right. Owens' film are recognizable for their dramatic lighting and the use of superimposition and layering of images.{{Cite web|url=https://navegandohaciamoonfleet.wordpress.com/tag/edward-owens/|title=Edward Owens {{!}} Navegando hacia Moonfleet|last=|first=|date=2017-08-04|website=navegandohaciamoonfleet.wordpress.com|language=es-ES|access-date=2018-03-01}} His featurette Tomorrow's Promise (1967) tells a story of emptiness. Created when Owens was only 18 years old, it references Markopoulos's Twice a Man (1963). Owens' approach to lighting and layered images, as well as changes in orientation and color, convey Owens' version of his personal life. Owens' film Remembrance: A Portrait Study (1967) is a portrait of Owens' mother Mildered, and her friends Irene Collins and Nettie Thomas. Within the film, each person is personified through song. "Running Wild" by Marilyn Monroe accompanies Nettie, while "All Cried Out" by Dusty Springfield accompanies Mildred. Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts (1968–70) focuses more directly on Owens' mother, layering her image with those from magazines and other pop cultural sources.

• Autrefois J'ai aime une femme (1966){{Cite journal|last=Hoberman|first=J.|date=Summer 2015|title=Life Interrupted: J.Hoberman on Edward Owens|url=https://www.artforum.com/print/201506/edward-owens-52251|journal=Artforum|volume=53|pages=119}}
• Tomorrow's Promise (1967)[https://mubi.com/films/tomorrow-s-promise Tomorrow's Promise (1967)|MUBI]
• Remembrance: A Portrait Study (1967)
• Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts (1968–70)

In 1971, Owens left New York for personal reasons and returned to his home state of Illinois. He died, without completing another film, at the age of 60, in October 2010.

While Owens' film Remembrance: A Portrait Study graces Parker Tyler's list of the most significant avant-garde films of 1968 in his Underground Film: A Critical History (1969), his work was largely unknown to contemporary audiences until the 2000s, engaged through the Film-Makers Cooperative in New York City.{{Cite book|last=Tyler|first=Parker|title=Underground Film: A Critical History|publisher=Grove Press|year=1969|isbn=0306806320|location=New York|pages=248}} In 2006, Ronald Gregg included Owens' films into a screening series at the University of Chicago titled "Beyond Warhol, Smith, and Anger: Recovering the Significance of Postwar Queer Underground Cinema, 1950-1968".{{Cite news|url=http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/060119/queercinema.shtml|title=Scholars to examine queer aesthetic in films|last=Carnig|first=Jennifer|date=January 19, 2006|work=University of Chicago Chronicle|access-date=March 30, 2018}} In 2009, the film programmer Ed Halter began working to spark the public's recognition of Edward Owen's work by rediscovering and redistributing his work as well as conducting personal interviews with Owens to better understand his creative vision.

In June 2016, collaborating with IndieCollect, The Film-Makers' Cooperative Executive Director MM Serra arranged for the 5k digital transfer of all four Edwards Owens films within the NACG collection, under the supervision of their digital media specialist Sheldon Henderson.{{Cite web|url=https://film-makerscoop.com/filmmakers/edward-owens|title=Film-makers' Coop|website=www.film-makerscoop.com|access-date=2021-07-01}} These digital transfers allowed for distribution and world-wide visibility of Owens' films through online Video on Demand programs.{{Cite web|url=https://vimeo.com/245457486|title= Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts|website=www.vimeo.com|access-date=2020-07-01}}{{Cite web|url=https://vimeo.com/245434442|title=Tomorrow's Promise|website=www.vimeo.com|access-date=2020-07-01}}{{Cite web|url=https://vimeo.com/408293127/cee81bff78|title=Remembrance: A Portrait Study|website=www.vimeo.com|access-date=2020-07-01}}

In 2017, curators Mark Godfrey and Zoé Whitley included Owens' films in the exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, calling them "not only early examples of an experimental filmmaker turning to Black life for their subject, but an even rare case of a queer Black aesthetic on celluloid."{{Cite book|title=Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power|last=Godfrey|first=Mark|publisher=D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers Inc|year=2017|isbn=978-1942884170|location=London|pages=118}} Owens' films have also been screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago (2018),Ed Halter via Skype. ProgramIntroduction. Conversations at the Edge. Edward Owens: A Portrait Study. 2018 the LA Film Forum (2019),{{Cite web|url=https://www.lafilmforum.org/archive/winter-2019/private-imaginings-the-films-of-edward-owens/|title=Private Imaginings: The Films of Edward Owens - LA Filmforum|website=www.lafilmforum.org|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-09}} the Museum of Modern Art in conjunction with The Film-Makers' Cooperative (2019),{{Cite web| url=https://film-makerscoop.com/screenings/museum-of-modern-art-annual-film-preservation-festival-edwar|title=Museum of Modern Art Annual Film Preservation Festival - Edward Owens|website=www.film-makerscoop.com|url-status=live|access-date=2020-07-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709181921/https://film-makerscoop.com/screenings/museum-of-modern-art-annual-film-preservation-festival-edwar |archive-date=2021-07-09 }} and the Maysles Documentary Center (2020).

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [http://post.browndailyherald.com/2016/04/14/lights-cameras-magic/ A Brief Mention of Edward Owens] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814015702/http://post.browndailyherald.com/2016/04/14/lights-cameras-magic/ |date=2018-08-14 }}, at Magic Lantern Cinema
• [http://www.bkmag.com/2015/04/01/greenpoints-light-industry-illuminating-the-obscure-for-cinephiles-and-all-the-rest-of-us/ Interview of Light Industry], The Host of Owens' Screenings

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Category:1949 births

Category:2010 deaths

Category:20th-century African-American people

Category:21st-century African-American people

Category:African-American film directors

Category:American experimental filmmakers

Category:American queer men