Eight Bridges
Viewer Advice: Accompanying short film contains stroboscopic imagery
James Benning, America’s master of slow cinema, invites audiences to consider bridges: structural and political, physical and metaphorical.
Eight American bridges – San Francisco’s Golden Gate; New Mexico’s Rio Grande Gorge; Selma, Alabama’s Edmund Pettus; Florida’s Seven Mile; the George Washington that connects New Jersey and Manhattan; the Dubuque-Wisconsin that crosses the Mississippi River; North Dakota’s Hi-Line; and the Astoria-Megler running from Oregon to Washington – are viewed for 10 minutes each. Each shot is simultaneously static and full of life, the long takes painting with light, sound and composition the point where nature meets human ingenuity, activity and history.
The latest visual essay from minimalist legend James Benning, Eight Bridges is cinema distilled to its purest form: a single take presented as is for audiences to contemplate; repeat. This formalism is Benning’s signature, as seen most recently at MIFF in little boy (MIFF 2025), Allensworth (MIFF 2023) and The United States of America (MIFF 2022). But more than his recent films, Eight Bridges harks back to and builds upon earlier long-take observational works such as 13 Lakes and Ten Skies. Shooting digitally, Benning mimics the structural syntax of these 16mm works (10 minutes approximating the duration of a standard reel of 16mm film) to deliver another essential cinematic essay on looking and listening.
“Eight Bridges is, by turns, meditative and contemplative … Benning offers an extended moment, if not of therapy, at least of quiet thoughtfulness and awareness – and cinematic pleasure.” – Documentary
Screens with short film Forever…Forever (21 mins).
Tickets
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