Jennifer Boles

THE REVERSAL

2020, 12 mins

The Reversal animates a collection of thousands of glass-plate negatives with an original sound composition to evoke the reverse-engineering of the Chicago River and the haunted past and present of our capital-driven infrastructures and landscapes.

AWARDS
Jury Award, Best Film Made in Chicago, Chicago Underground Film Festival
Honorable Mention for Best Film in Documentary Arts, Mimesis Documentary Film Festival
Nomination for Best Film and Best Editing, Best of the Midwest Film Festival
Winner for Best Score, Best of the Midwest Film Festival

FESTIVALS AND SCREENINGS
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Scotland, UK (2020)
DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver, British Columbia (2020)
Antimatter Media Art, Victoria, British Columbia (2020)
AMDOCS American Documentary and Animation Film Festival, Palm Springs, CA (2020)
Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago, IL (2020)
New Orleans Film Festival, New Orleans, LA (2020)
ULTRAcinema, Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico (2020)
Athens Film and Video Festival, Athens, OH (2021)
Chicago Underground Film Festival (2021)
Sound of Silent Film Festival, Chicago, IL (2021)
Tactical Gardens, Chemical (Re)actions, Goethe-Institut Chicago (2021)
Midwest Film Festival, Chicago, IL (2021)
Mimesis Documentary Film Festival, Boulder, CO, installation (2021)
LUCA virtual screening, Mexico City (2022)
Florida Experimental Film Festival, Tampa, FL (2022)
North X North International Film Festival, Duluth, MN (2022)
Undercurrents Exhibition, Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, St. Augustine, FL, installation (2022)
Ann Arbor Film Festival Special Program, Ann Arbor, MI (2023)
Chicago International Film Festival Summer Series, Chicago, IL (2023)
Gene Siskel Film Center, Nightingale Cinema Projects Program, Chicago, IL (2023)

INSTALLATIONS
McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum, Chicago, site-specific installation on the Chicago River (2022)
The Tenderhouse Project Bridgehouse Activations, South Ashland Bridgehouse, site-specific installation on the Chicago River (2022)

“In The Reversal, Jennifer Boles ingeniously constructs an enthralling sense of movement from analog stills: glass-plate photographs recording the reversal of the Chicago River—completed in 1900—an engineering marvel underpinned, as the film conveys with stunning ambivalence, by violence, exploitation, and death”
-Michael Pattison, Wide Angle

PUBLICATIONS
Jennifer Boles, “The Reversal: Making Rivers out of Archives,” Photography and Culture (July 2020).