whoever fights monsters
16mm, super 8, video  I  37 minutes  I  2008

watch edited excerpt

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.  And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you. *

Whoever Fights Monsters is an experimental documentary exploring the connections between free-improvised jazz and progressive thinking and politics. The film consists of interviews with eight musicians in three cities New York: Tatsuya Nakatani *, Ras Moshe * and William Parker *; Chicago: Kent Kessler *, Michael Zerang * and Ken Vandermark *; and Stockholm: Dror Feiler * and Mats Gustafsson *.

The musicians were recorded solo and combined and layered by me in the editing process into a sort of exquisite corpse ensemble.  The structure of the editing and layered compositions of sound and image were determined by a pictoral analysis of Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz * album.

essay by Brett Kashmere *

My music and words should function as a tool kits for an anti-fascist existence. My music is a strategy and subversion, my compositions and writings should escape even my own intentions; the more unplanned uses that my music and words take on the more it pleases me. *