Kevin Jerome Everson

“How Can I Ever Be Late” takes the tarmac arrival of Sly and the Family Stone as a point of departure: African American students of the University of Virginia greet the band at the airport in 1973.Read More »

Years ago Kevin Jerome Everson asked his aunt about old family photographs. Her reply—that “we lost them in the flood” was the catalyst for this film, a poem and paean to the citizens of Westport, Mississippi, the hometown of the filmmaker’s parents.Read More »

An experimental film that lifts the veil on the world of African American drag racing.

Set in the world of African-American drag racing in Virginia, Cinnamon follows Erin (actress Erin Stewart), a young bank teller, and John, a mechanic, as they prepare for a race. As a driver, her routine is to stay focused before races, while his is to constantly examine the driver’s behavior.Read More »

With a screening time equivalent to a full day’s work, Everson turns the cinema into a factory floor. Workers are observed while performing specific tasks, as well as while taking breaks. His humble approach paradoxically results in a monumental film.Read More »

Quote:
Tonsler Park (2017) observes, in black and white 16mm, the democratic process in action, at Charlottesville, Virginia voting precincts, over the course of Election Day, November 8, 2016.Read More »

Quote:
In the first few minutes of Kevin Everson’s new film Spicebush, the screen splits into two frames, one showing a brick factory employee at work, the other a hostess announcing the winning numbers for the Ohio lottery. The juxtaposition serves as context, but it’s clear from the rest of the movie that Everson’s interest lies in the relentlessness of labor. Perhaps this is not a coincidence—he works indefatigably. Currently, 39-year-old Everson is making final edits to Spicebush, casting a new feature film, and working on a screenplay with playwright and historian Talaya Delaney—all in addition to teaching a full course load in art at the University of Virginia.Read More »

With a sense of place and historical research, Kevin Jerome Everson films combine scripted and documentary moments with rich elements of formalism. The subject matter is the gestures or tasks caused by certain conditions in the lives of working class African Americans and other people of African descent. The conditions are usually physical, social-economic circumstances or weather. Instead of standard realism he favors a strategy that abstracts everyday actions and statements into theatrical gestures, in which archival footage is re-edited or re-staged, real people perform fictional scenarios based on their own lives and historical observations intermesh with contemporary narratives. The films suggest the relentlessness of everyday life—along with its beauty—but also present oblique metaphors for art-making.Read More »