Alex and José

Director: Cynthia Madansky
Cinematographer: Carolyn Macartney, Merve Kayan
Performers: Alexandra Sichel, José Gabriel Fernandez
Music: Zeena Parkins
16mm ◊ 5 min.

An elegant companion piece to Elle (2007) Alex & José is a genre-shaded dance film that explores the poetic potential of the miniature. A quiet impressionistic play in dialectics, the film oscillates elegantly between man and woman, between interior and exterior, in the footage of its titular friends. José Gabriel Fernandez, all in black, performs in front of a garage door. His gestures are cut against those of the late filmmaker Alex Sichel, shifting quietly in s hallway. The result is oblique and haunting, but nonetheless tender.