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Film/Videography | Film Descriptions | Awards

LIGHT PHARMACY FILMS
All works conceived, directed, photographed & edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin

Stripe Tease (1983)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Irene Fizer, John Bartle and Rosemary Passantino
Length: 15 minutes
"Stripes conceal and reveal, allowing as well as preventing perception and comprehension. What they overlay, they shred into even pieces, establishing both an orderly and fissured image. The camera plays upon its own theme with its rapid cuts on static objects, moving too quickly for the eye to put the images together at once. In this way the camera teases: by leading the viewer on/in and then denying total apprehension...The images mean to tantalize."---Irene Fizer

Gradiva (1984)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Dennis Benson, Irene Fizer and Andrew Daddio
Music by Michael Nigrin;
Length: 16 minutes
"Gradiva deals with a man who constructs/creates an idealized image of a woman, seductive but false. However, there also exists a real Gradiva, seeking to slowly wean the hero from his obsession, who consents to play at the ideal for a time so as 'not to awaken the dreamer too abruptly; gradually to unite myth and reality.' Gradiva soon tires of the game. The film deals with the point of loss. Gradiva is intangible, fading in and out, always a step away, no matter the speed of approach. Gradiva is ambiguous, a mirror image, kind and gentle, false and deadly. The hero is caught in a web and is not as sympathetic as he may first appear. He has consented to spin the web; he creates the scenario in which he is forced to act."---Dennis Benson

Dot 2 Dot/Tete A Tete (1984)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Assisted by Irene Fizer, Dennis Benson, Paul Young and Andrew Daddio
Music by Edgar Varese
Length: 16 minutes
"Dot 2 Dot/Tete A Tete plays upon our contradictory desires for disorder and order, instituting a tension and symbiosis between images of multiplicity, continuity, advancement, and those of deliniation, constriction and finality. The opening credits, the single ticket on the screen, and the TV static rebound into infinity; the undulating, arcing Slinky becomes a humid tunnel into endless space; the refracted landscape in the moving mirror multiplies into unintelligibility; the senuous red spin of the water, the spiral on the ball, and the sped-up sundial motion of the spider web and the academy leader (8,7,6,5, etc.), are all representations of self-pre-occupied motion..."---Irene Fizer

Aurelia or Echo In Her Eyes: Part 3 (1985)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Irene Fizer and Dennis Benson
Music by Michael Nigrin and Jack Rusnak
Length: 13 minutes
"Aurelia hurls the telltale images at us -- almost like poetry can collide words. Ordinary cause and effect are way back in the very depths of the movie while on the screen a new system takes over... The film itself is black and white, grainy, rough, with a hand hewn quality like a pencil drawing or poem that had been scratched on the back of an envelope with a pencil. A great deal of preparation went into the ten-minute reel, as footage of Barcelona, Paris and New Brunswick is included. You'll enjoy it and appreciate it. I did."--- Jason Kaufman, The Inside Beat, 1985. A woman sleeps. She dreams of a troubling encounter with a man at a futuristic cathedral. In this dream the proliferation of a day's images is reduced and refined into more enigmatic renderings. The world of color and movement translates into one of stone, shadow and light. In the epilogue the woman, now awake, lingers over the dream scenario which has just played; she prepares new variations. The film poses the problem of defining the relationship between dreaming and waking consciousness. Aurelia was shot on location in Barcelona, Spain at the unfinished Sagrada Familia church designed by Antonio Gaudi. It is based in spirit on Gerard de Nerval's novella Aurelia.---AGN

Spin Me Round/Shake Well (1986)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Irene Fizer and Paul Young
Length: 6 minutes
"Spin Me Round/Shake Well is actually two short, quite elegant films, each performing exactly what the title predicts, but with a highly refined sense of space, composition, and movement."---S.A. Barnes, Experimental Film Coalition Newsletter, 1987. Spin Me Round is a tribute to Hurricane Gloria. Shake Well is a cinematic milk shake.---AGN

You Are Here -X- Marks The Spot (1986)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Christine Svevar, Dennis Benson, Irene Fizer and Craig Molino
Length: 10 minutes
The 'X' and the bull's-eye form the thematic basis for this psycho-dramatic film concerned with focalisation, dream representation, the positioning of the camera vis-a-vis the spectator, concealment and revelation, the targeting of the gaze and the manipulation of refracted light.---AGN

Brainwashing (1987)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Assisted by Irene Fizer and Dennis Benson
Sound by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Length: 6 minutes
Brainwashing, shot almost exclusively inside a car wash, is a hypnotic film which functions as a metaphor for the drowning of the soul. The soundtrack consists of a condensed washing machine cycle: start, wash, rinse, dry, off.---AGN
"(Brainwashing) is an abstract study of a car wash that's really a metaphor. There are graphic patterns and spinning black and white discs, textures, water surfaces, raindrops, window surfaces. It's quite an interesting piece."---John Columbus, Director, Thomas Edison-Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1989.

Terrain Vague (1987)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Allison Diamond, Lisette Castelo, Dennis Benson, Julie Chimerine, Andre Anthony
Music by Michael Nigrin
Camera Assistant: Craig Molino
Still Photography: Patrick Woody and Dennis Benson
Lighting Assistant: Patrick Woody
Length: 13 minutes
Shot on location in central New Jersey, Terrain Vague [wasteland in French] deals with two women who concurrently experience the same dream. An homage to Alain Robbe-Grillet.---AGN

The Burning Text (1988)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Anne Burns;
Music by Daniel Nigrin
Length: 13 minutes
The Burning Text is derived from writings by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio and from photographs by Bill Brandt. In the film a vain woman commits the ultimate selfish act by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. The Wizard of Oz in reverse.The Burning Text is the visual component of a multi-media performance piece by Moi, Je Nage..., an experimental theater troupe based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In the multi-media performance, the movie usher, traditionally situated at the perimeter of the theater, is placed at the center. ---AGN

Rummage (1989)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Assistant Direction by Irene Fizer
Voice Over by Mac Dettman
Sound by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Length: 25 minutes
Rummage is an experimental documentary of the legendary rummage sale that takes place in Far Hills, New Jersey every first weekend in May and October. Rummage, shot over three years on Tri-X black and white film stock, captures a complex range of images from the sale: the shouts of anticipation when the tents open in the morning; the mulling over unidentifiable objects; the fierce competition for bargains; the frustration over long waits to enter popular departments such as "Kitchen Goods" and "Women's Clothing"; and the plastic flaps of the tents rising in the wind -- revealing and concealing the buyers within. The soundtrack primarily consists of an interview with Mac Dettman - a venerable member of the rummage sale staff. At certain points this interview is in synch with the images; at others it is not. The soundtrack also consists of ambient sounds from the sale: hamburger orders, questions about price; haggling over broken merchandise, etc. ---AGN "As usual I found a Nigrin film [Rummage] intriguing and haunting. (Nigrin's) ability to deal with the ordinary... while suggesting that, just around the corner, there is something strange and wierd and scary continues to move me in special ways." ---Professor Michael Rockland, Chair, Department of American Studies, Rutgers University, 1990

Shifting Margins 1 (1991)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Special Thanks: Brodsky and Treadway and DAK Productions
Length: 3 minutes
A statue of a horse [located in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, France] shot at 18fps on Kodachrome color super 8mm film transferred to high quality video. The film camera was shaken at various intensities to simulate the various forms of horse locomotion -- walk, trot, gallop, etc. The film is silent yet one hears the rhythm of hooves. The green color of the statue's faded bronze was amplified, as was the blue sky in post-production. A homage to Pegasus, Le Magnifique in Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, and Eadweard Muybridge.---AGN

Shifting Margins 2 (1991)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Nicola Zvorsky
Music Composed and Performed by Michael Nigrin
Special Thanks: Brodsky and Treadway and DAK Productions
Length: 4 minutes
A light play. A woman spins in front of a 650 watt photo light. The film camera captures the various intensities of light refraction created by the woman concealing and revealing the light behind her. The film was shot at 18fps on Tri-X black and white super 8mm film (with some Kodachrome 40 Color film added) transferred to high quality video. The film images were then slowed down to 5 and 6 fps during the transfer. Minimalist music emphasizes the revolving motion of the female figure. Camera movement, and the parameters of the film frame were purposely restricted. An emphasis was placed on economy and imagination.---AGN

Emma Woolfolk (1992)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Irene Fizer
Music Composed and Performed by Michael Nigrin
Special Thanks: Brodsky and Treadway and DAK Productions
Length: 8 minutes
A collection of personal fragments of my collaborator Irene Fizer shot at various hotels, parks, and resorts in Florence, Paris, Asbury Park, Port Jervis, and Buffalo. Inspired by Fernand Khnopff's painting "Memories/ Lawn Tennis" (1889), the film presents a series of daydreams evoked by objects and places. Shot on Tri-X black and white and Kodachrome color film at 18fps and transferred to high quality video. Some of the images were slowed down to 5, 6 and 9 fps during the film transfer. The color and b+w textures of the film were exaggerated to create a nostalgic and oneiric atmosphere. The soundtrack was structured like a music box -- when the window opens the music starts, when the window closes, the music stops.---AGN

Light Pharmacy: 4.1 (1993)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Allison Diamond and Irene Fizer
Length: 6 minutes
Light Pharmacy: 4.1 is part of a series of 'film haiku' concerned primarily with the reflection and refraction of sunlight, and dream representation.---AGN
"A surreal fantasy - almost a homage to Maya Deren. Nigrin has a fine feeling for imagery and pacing."---William Sloan, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 1988.

Echolalia (1990-94)
Co-Produced by Albert Gabriel Nigrin and Dennis Benson
Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Anne Burns, Allison Diamond, Erica Mosner, and Karima Wicks
Scripted by Dennis Benson
Music by Michael Nigrin ("Elizabeth's Empty Cup")
Camera Assistants: Craig Molino and Patrick Woody
Still Photography: Patrick Woody and Dennis Benson
Lighting Assistants: Julia Anderson, Ramona Rios and Patrick Woody
Length: 13 minutes
Echolalia, is an experimental black and white 16mm film suggested by a Rilke poem ("Sonnets to Orpheus II, 14"). It consists of a series of composed tableaux that are animated by special flickering effects and superimpositions achieved through the manipulation of the camera's optics. In the still, oppressive heat of an August afternoon, a woman slips in and out of a dream. Soundlessly, a trio of female phantoms descend from the air, gather in her garden, and then enter her house. Are these phantoms benign or malevolent? Are they real or unreal? The ambiguity of the phantoms and their actions force the spectator to draw their own conclusions. The film is also presented in a variety of multi-media formats. One has the film projection flanked by video projection. The triptych set-up of a film screen flanked by two video monitors thematically underscores Echolalia's central image of three ghostly women. However, to produce a further unsettling effect on the viewer, the film is projected slightly out of synch with the video images, creating a "visual echo." More recently, Echolalia has been projected with positive video images being superimposed over identical negative film images. Film scholar, critic and filmmaker Laura Mulvey has entitled this process the "ghosting effect."

Peanuts and Grain (1995)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Length: 30 minutes;
Color/Sound; Shot on Hi8 Video; Post-produced on 3/4" Video
Peanuts and Grain is a minimalist (ambient) video verite piece which documents my daily ritual feeding of the wildlife -- some 40 pigeons, 30 starlings, 12 squirrels, 6 bluejays, 4 crows, 2 cardinals, etc. -- which gather in the small parking lot behind my office every morning. The camera is placed at a squirrel's eye view. There are only two edits in this piece when the camera is moved to replace the power supply.---AGN

Light Pharmacy: Part 5 (1996)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Music by Daniel Nigrin
Film-to-Video Transfer by Brodsky & Treadway
Length: 3 minutes; B+W/Sound;
Shot on S8mm Film; Post-produced on 1" Video
The 5th part of the Light Pharmacy series continues a preoccupation with reflected and refracted sunlight, and haiku poetry. Light Pharmacy: 5 consists of a series of long shots to extreme close-ups of a stream of water in a street gutter. The stream (or the infinitely small) becomes a mirror reflecting the turbulent movement of the stars (or the infinitely large).---AGN

Mental Radio (a.k.a. Open Kennedy) (1996)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Irene Fizer, Daniel Nigrin, Gabriel Nigrin, Victory Furniture, Whitee, Tiny, Samson Dean, Baldy, and Marco "The Master" Polo
Music by Daniel Nigrin
Film-to-Video Transfer by Brodsky & Treadway
Funding and services provided in part by the New Jersey Media Arts Center, Rutgers University, and DAK Productions.
Special thanks to Upton Sinclair, Mary Craig, Lili Dolly Nigrin, John Belton, NJMAC, and Irene Fizer.
Length: 11 minutes;
Color/B+W/Sound; Shot on S8mm Film; Post-produced on 1" Video
"Our situation on earth seems strange... Everyone of us appears here involuntarily and are invited for a short stay without knowing why. To me it is enough to wonder at the secrets." -- Albert Einstein
"One must cultivate one's own garden"-- Voltaire
Believing she had telepathic powers, Mary Craig and her husband, the writer Upton Sinclair, set out to test these powers in the 1920s. Sinclair would draw pictures and then transmit them mentally to Craig; she would draw the image she received in an adjacent, closed room. Their experiments were 75% successful. The telepathic interaction between Craig and Sinclair served as one of the starting points for my film Mental Radio which depicts psychic and telepathic interactions between soul mates both animal and human. This film is also visual interpretation of my thyroid illness Graves Disease, diagnosed late in 1990. The physicals in the film replicate the weekly examinations I received for a 6-month period. The film's editing was dynamically composed but not necessarily meant to fit the sounds and music. The pacing between staccato vs. still shots is meant to parallel or simulate the physiological sensations associated with Graves Disease which include heart palpitations and unstable feelings counterpoised with periods of tranquility. Mental Radio is also documentation of my garden following a chronological development -- from early Spring to mid-summer with the garden in full bloom. The film juxtaposes the vitality and fragility of the human body with that of the earth/nature.---AGN

Art, Empire, Industry (1990-96)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Lynn Brunskill and Laura Firman
Animal Footage Shot by Burd Stover
Music by Michael Nigrin
Length: 13 minutes
Three forms of capture. Shot in Piscataway, New Jersey; Death Valley, California; New Orleans, Louisiana.---AGN

The Furies (1998)
Produced and Directed by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Jeff York, Julie Yoo, Erica Mosner, Kyle DeVaul, and Maya Alexandri
Cinematography by Albert Gabriel Nigrin and Richard Clark
Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Music by Mitch Hiller, Marc Macrini, and Albert Nigrin
Sound Advice by Irene Fizer
Production Associates: Jennifer Fishberg, Victory Furniture, Michelle Golden, Brian Kearns, and David Sullivan
Funding and Services provided by the New Jersey Media Arts Center, Rutgers University, Alpha-Cine, and Eastman Kodak
Length: 26 minutes
Orestes likes to spend his lunch hour at the Park by the Raritan River. One day he feels a strange presense during his daily promenade -- as if someone or something was following him. He is not mistaken. Having walked down a different path, he had disturbed the hibernating female phantoms that haunt the River. They awaken and begin to pursue him. The leader, Electra, pursues closest and peaks Orestes' interest. They play a bit of cat and mouse until finally meeting and agreeing to a pact. Electra desires Orestes and his mortality and continues to track him until she confronts him again at a nearby house. However, this house has been occupied by the other three Furies, who force Orestes to turn on, or rather extinguish, Electra. For the others, Electra's longing for immortality was dispensible. Now it is Orestes' turn. The Furies pursue and capture Orestes and order him to drown himself in the River. The Furies is a modern dress reworking of Aeschylus's classical play entitled The Eumenides.The Furies is recounted in silent film form with ambient sounds and vocalizations punctuating a musical soundtrack. Influenced by Abel Gance's three screen Napoleon; Don Siegal's The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jean-Paul Sartre's The Flies, and Alain Robbe-Grillet's The Immortal One, The Furies transforms these literary and cinematic threads into a modern parable.--AGN

Tundra (1999)
Produced by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Victory Furniture
Length: 3 min.
A hypnotic film haiku focusing on blowing and billowing snow shot on the Trans-Siberian Railway.--VF

Grounding (2023)
Produced, Directed and Cinematography by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin and Katie Scrivani
With Katie Scrivani
Sound Advice by Irene Fizer
Length: B+W/Color/Sound/23 minutes-short version/46 minutes-long version
A series of stream of consciousness visual field recordings interspersed with images of a woman flashing sunlight into the lens of the camera. "Grounding" is a therapeutic technique that involves doing activities that "ground" or electrically reconnect you to the earth. Grounding was screened as part of the New Jersey Film Festival Solo Musical Performance by Tim Motzer on September 15, 2023.

Dream Screen (2024)
Directed and Shot by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Katie Scrivani
Edited by Anita LaBelle and Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Sound Design by Anita LaBelle and Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Sound Advice by Irene Fizer
Length: B+W/Color/Sound/10 minutes
Special Thanks to the Rutgers University Cinema Studies Program, Pro8mm, the New Jersey Media Arts Center, Katie Scrivani, Anita LaBelle, Lili Dolly Nigrin, and Irene Fizer
Shot on Super 8mm film and digital video, Dream Screen is an experimental dream film. As a woman dreams about herself dreaming, she brandishes a mirror that reflects and refracts sunlight onto alternate versions of herself who, in turn, begin to shine mirrored sunlight towards each other. The reflected sunlight summons the dreamer's selves to wake from their own nocturnal slumbers and move through a dreamscape fractured by rivers, canals as well as other surreal elements. Dream Screen pays homage to the films like Don Siegel's 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Alain Robbe-Grillet's 1963, Kenneth Anger's 1980 Lucifer Rising, and Maya Deren's 1943 Meshes of the Afternoon.

Cold War Blues or Effects of the Bomb Varied, But... (2024)
Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Animation by Albert Gabriel Nigrin, Sonia O'Leary, Gabrielle Stander, and Kevin Zygler
Sound Design by Victory Furniture
Funding and services provided in part by the New Jersey Media Arts Center, Rutgers University, and Eastman Kodak
Shot on Super 8 Tri-X B+W film and manipulated digitally. 7 minutes
Special thanks to Gabriel and Lili Dolly Nigrin, Michel Aubry, Stan Van Der Beek, Terry Gilliam, Victory Furniture, and Irene Fizer.
A playful cut-out animation focusing on the Cold War. With special guest appearances by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev, John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, and many others.

Pizzica (2024)
Directed and Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
With Alexia Fraser and Evelyn Reese
Cinematography by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Edited by Albert Gabriel Nigrin, Irene Fizer and Anita LaBelle
Sound Design by Albert Gabriel Nigrin
Costume Design by Irene Fizer
Special Thanks to the Rutgers University Cinema Studies Program, Pro8mm, the New Jersey Media Arts Center, Anita LaBelle, Lili Dolly Nigrin, and Irene Fizer.
Shot on Super 8mm film and digital video, Pizzica is an experimental dream film. Pizzica originated as a folk dance in the 1400s in Southern Italy. Though there are several different theories about its origin, the most accepted story is that this dance could fight off the poisonous bite of a tarantula. Color/Sound/10 minutes.