New Cinema

No wave cinema was a Colab-sponsored boom (1976–1985) in underground filmmaking on the Lower East Side of New York City. Its name, much like its cousin no wave music, was a stripped-down style of guerrilla filmmaking that emphasized mood and texture above other concerns.

This brief movement, also known as New Cinema (after a short-lived screening room on St. Mark’s Place run by several filmmakers on the scene), had a significant impact on both underground film, spawning the Cinema of Transgression (Scott B and Beth B, Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, Tessa Hughes-Freeland and others) and a new generation of independent filmmaking in New York (Jim Jarmusch, Tom DiCillo, Steve Buscemi, and Vincent Gallo).

Other filmmakers associated with the movement included Charlie Ahearn, Manuel DeLanda, Vivienne Dick, Eric Mitchell, James Nares, Amos Poe, Susan Seidelman and Casandra Stark Mele.

In 1978, Nares released a well-known no wave Super 8 film titled Rome 78, his only venture into feature-length, plot-driven film. Despite its large cast in period costumes, the work was not intended as a serious undertaking, as the actors interject self-conscious laughter into scenes and deliver seemingly improvised lines with over-the-top bravado. The film features no wave cinema regular Lydia Lunch along with Mitchell, James Chance, John Lurie, Judy Rifka, Jim Sutcliffe, Lance Loud, Mitch Corber, Patti Astor, artist David McDermott of McDermott & McGough, and Kristian Hoffman, among others.

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