Bill Brown

Life on the Mississippi (2019)

An essay film about a river and the limits of knowing it. Using Mark Twain's "Life On The Mississippi" as a road map, Brown travels along the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tennessee to New Orleans and considers ways that river pilots, paddlers, historica ...

XCTRY (2018)

A pocket-sized travelogue about leaving one hometown and looking for the next one. In this film, Brown re-works 16mm footage that he shot years ago during a cross-country road trip from Chicago to Las Vegas. The spatial discontinuities of the road trip ar ...

Amarillo Ramp (2017)

Perhaps best known for his Spiral Jetty, sculptor Robert Smithson's interest in landscape and land use was prophetic. In 1973, Texas oil millionaire Stanley Marsh 3 commissioned Smithson to create an earthwork on Marsh's cattle ranch north of Amarillo, cal ...

Speculation Nation (2014)

In this impressionistic documentary film, Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown travel across Spain to explore responses to the housing crisis of the early 2000s. The filmmakers visit families squatting in failed condo developments; intentional communities of mou ...

A Return to The Return to Reason (2013)

A Return to The Return to Reason is a tribute to Man Ray's 1923 film "Le Retour à La Raison" (A return to Reason), the first film to use his 'Rayograph' technique in which Man Ray exposed found objects onto film negative. In this film the found object is ...

Memorial Land (2012)

In the decade since the events of 9/11/2001, the United States has been engaged in a national act of memorial making. Some of these 9/11 memorials are contested sites, where conflicting visions and voices clash. But most are quiet and deeply personal. This ...

Document (2011)

Kustom Kamera Kommandos (2005)

Making an obvious nod to Kenneth Anger's "Kustom Kar Kommandos", the film portrays a man gently cleaning and manipulating his camera. ...

Mountain State (2003)

A short historical-landscape film, directed by Bill Brown. ...

Buffalo Common (2002)

As its nuclear missile silos get blown-up, North Dakota scratches its head and wonders what's next. ...

Confederation Park (1999)

A landscape film concerning location (Montréal, St. John's, Regina, and Vancouver), narration, history, and the personal role of the director in the formation of audiovisual art. ...

Hub City (1997)

HUB CITY is a short about Lubbock, Texas, the home of Buddy Holly. It is also about trajectories of death and small towns in general. ...