
Lynne Sachs makes films, performances, installations and web projects that explore the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences by weaving together poetry, collage, painting, politics and layered sound design. Since 1994, her five essay films have taken her to Vietnam, Bosnia, Israel and Germany — sites affected by international war–where she tries to work in the space between a community’s collective memory and her own subjective perceptions. Strongly committed to a dialogue between cinematic theory and practice, Lynne searches for a rigorous play between image and sound, pushing the visual and aural textures in her work with each and every new project. Since 2006, she has collaborated with her partner Mark Street in a series of playful, mixed-media performance collaborations they call The XY Chromosome Project. In addition to her work with the moving image, Lynne co-edited the Millennium Film Journal issue on “Experiments in Documentary”. Supported by fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Jerome Foundations and the New York State Council on the Arts, Lynne’s films have screened at the New York Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival and Toronto’s Images Festival as well as a five-film survey at the Buenos Aires Film Festival. The San Francisco Cinematheque recently published a monograph with four original essays in conjunction with a full retrospective of Lynne’s work. In 2012, Lynne began a series of live film performances of Your Day is My Night at St. Nick’s Alliance in Greenpoint, at Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn, at Maysles Cinema and at the University Settlement. She then screened the completed hour-long hybrid video at the Museum of Modern Art, the Vancouver Film Fest, Union Docs, the New Orleans Film Fest and other venues in Mexico, Argentina and Ecuador. Lynne teaches experimental film and video at New York University and The New School and lives in Brooklyn.
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2024This Side of SalinaMovieDirector
2024ContractionsMovieDirector · Producer
2022SwerveMovieDirector
2021Figure and IMovieDirector
2021Maya at 24MovieDirector
2021E•pis•to•lar•y: letter to Jean VigoMovieDirector · Producer
2020Girl Is PresenceMovieDirector of Photography · Director
2020Film About a Father WhoMovieas Self · Director of Photography · Director · Writer
2019A Month of Single FramesMovieWriter · Editor · Director
2018¡Despertar!MovieDirector · Cinematography
2018A Morning with Jack WatersMovieDirector
2018The Washing SocietyMovieDirector · Writer
2018Carolee, Barbara and GunvorMovieDirector
2017And Then We MarchedMovieDirector
2017Tip of my TongueMovieDirector
2017A Year in Notes and NumbersMovieDirector
2016Day ResidueMovieDirector
2016Film HawkMovieas Self
2015Starfish Aorta ColossusMovieDirector
2014Drift and BoughMovieDirector
2014Your Day Is My NightMovieProducer · Director
2012Same Stream TwiceMovieDirector
2011Sound of a ShadowMovieDirector
2010Wind in Our HairMovieDirector
2010The Task of the TranslatorMovieDirector
2009The Last Happy DayMovieDirector of Photography · Editor · Director · Writer
2009Georgic for a Forgotten PlanetMovieDirector
2007XY Chromosome ProjectMovieDirector
2006The Small OnesMovieDirector
2006Atalanta: 32 Years LaterMovieDirector
2006Noa, NoaMovieDirector
2005States of UnBelongingMovieas Self · Director · Writer · Executive Producer · Producer · Director of Photography · Editor · Sound Editor
2002Investigation of a FlameMovieDirector
2002First Steps in a Terra IncognitaMovieDirector
2002TornadoMovieDirector
2001Photograph of WindMovieDirector
2000Window WorkMovieDirector
1997A Biography of LilithMovieDirector
1994Which Way Is East: Notebooks from VietnamMovieDirector · Writer
1991The House of Science: A Museum of False FactsMovieDirector
1989Sermons and Sacred PicturesMovieDirector
1988The Randy Band FilmMovieDirector
1987Following the Object to Its Logical BeginningMovieDirector
1986FossilMovieDirector
1986Drawn and QuarteredMovieDirector
1986Still Life with Woman and Four ObjectsMovieDirector
1983The TarotMovieDirector
—Tomorrow Doesn't ExistMovieas Self (Voice)
—Visit to Bernadette Mayer’s Childhood HomeMovieDirector