Investigating the Experimental Films of Kalil Haddad
A retrospective looking over the work of experimental video artist and filmmaker Kalil Haddad.
Recently, I reached out to experimental filmmaker Kalil Haddad in search for access to his latest work, The Taking of Jordan (All American Boy). I watched and was shaken by that film, reviewing it here:
It was a film that mostly grabbed my attention because of its grim subject matter and the way that that subject was treated on film. Haddad, as proven through my adventure through as much of his work as I could get my hands on, turns to video time and time again to toy with its stand-out features in his editing room.
This fascination with video reveals itself in different ways, largely depending on the subject matter of whichever film he is working on. In terms of Jordan, Haddad entered a truly abrasive mode which makes use of these arresting strobe effects which, when mixed with his equally strong sound editing and use of archival footage (using samples like the finest DJ would — something truly unique in film that I have seen done rarely at all…
