Jake Yuzna


Jake Yuzna is an American film director, screenwriter, and curator. His debut feature Open was the first American film to win the Teddy Jury Prize and the Berlin Film Festival and in 2005 Yuzna become the youngest recipient of funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Although known mainly for his work in film, Yuzna has curated several retrospectives, exhibitions and special projects. In 2010, he founded the first cinema program at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. Between 2011 - 2013 he organized the first fellowship, publication and conference to argue nightlife as a form of contemporary art.
He has also curated the first American retrospectives of artists and filmmakers including Alejandro Jodorowsky, Sion Sono, Gregg Araki, Francois Sagat, and Quentin Crisp. In addition, Yuzna curated the first museum surveys of Metamodernsim, the New French Extremity, and the medium of VHS.
Yuzna is the son of poet Susan Yuzna and nephew to horror film director and producer Brian Yuzna.

Filmography

Awards and honors

YearProject
2010Blood into Gold: The Cinematic Alchemy of Alejandro Jodorowsky
2011 - 2013THE FUN Fellowship in the Social Practice of Nightlife
2011Sion Sono: The New Poet
2011François Sagat: The New Leading Man
2012VHS
2012Argento: Il Cinema Nel Sangue
2012No Wave Cinema
2013After the Museum
2013It Is Crispin Hellion Glover
2013Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Quentin Crisp
2013Without Compromise: The Cinema of William Klein
2013God Help Me: Gregg Araki
2014NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial
2014Life with Technology: The Cinema of Godfrey Reggio
2015It's Hard to be Human: The Cinema of Roy Andersson
2015The Director Must Not Be Credited: 20 Years of Dogme 95
2015The Unseen Cinema of HR Giger
2015Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time