EN AVANT [about a year in MPLS]

A meditative ride through the city during a period of tumult and transition: coming together and falling apart.

I spend my days and nights delivering food to affluent shut-ins while observing and enduring the collapse of civilization. I have used this time to document oppressive landscapes created by hostile urban planning, the isolation and segregation of communities by strategically placed interstate highways, concentrations of obscene wealth, and the trauma of living under a violent police and military occupation. I see a government that would rather protect itself with razor wire, plywood, and concrete barriers than protect my neighbors. I see a community enduring ceaseless anxiety and tension while state helicopters fly above. And I see beautiful ecstatic moments and hope everywhere in this broken place that I love.

Director Dan Schneidkraut is a writer/director/editor and sometimes camera operator currently residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A recipient of two McKnight Fellowships (2010/2016) and The Creative Capital Award for Moving Image (2015), Dan has been recognized primarily for his experimental narrative work (Seeking Wellness, Invincible Force) which has been called “uncomfortable to watch” (Urban Cinephile, 2009), “sublime yet terrifying” (Filmstock, 2008), “stunningly depraved” (Melbourne Underground, 2009) and “the kind of thinky/sadistic exercise that even the dark prince of psychological horror Michael Haneke might find difficult to watch” (City Pages, 2008).

In 2013 Dan delved into the documentary form with a personal exploration of fatherhood, generational violence, and the death of record stores entitled Old Man, described by film scholar Jack Sargeant as “an exceptional and poetic work” (Film Ink, 2014). In 2015 Dan shot his second feature documentary, Vore King, a detailed portrait of R.P. Whalen, world famous horror host, trash movie guru, carnival sideshow barker and America's premier purveyor of vorarephilia fetish pornography. Shortly thereafter Dan suffered a traumatic brain injury and subsequently his projects have become smaller in scale and more introspective.

Dan’s work has been seen at Anthology Film Archives, The Walker Art Center, MoMA, Ann Arbor Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, Athens International Film & Video, Filmstock International, Cellular Cinema, Revelation Perth, Antimatter [Media Art], Grand Illusion Cinema, Trylon Microcinema, and a few other places.

36:58
Minnesota, USA