Beginning on Thursday, February 15, the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center presents Digital Cinema: What Is It and What Can It Be?, a symposium lead by artist-in-residence Jon Jost .

Each week, on Thursdays at 7 p.m. through the end of May, Jost will present a digitally made film and will elucidate on the vicissitudes of digital cinema in all its implications.

This week’s film is HOMECOMING by Jon Jost , a digital feature-length video shot in 2004 about an American family attempting to cope with the loss of a son killed in the war in Iraq .

HOMECOMING is not a “plot” film, but more a tone-poem; its meanings arise from its broader ambience, its moods, its sense of time and place. It is meant as a metaphor for the larger family of America , which, at this time, is harshly divided, and unable to speak to itself meaningfully across that division. This film broaches this subject poetically, gently, through a depiction of characters who are unable to articulate to each other or to themselves the disquiet which curdles within them.

Attendance to this symposium is free and open to the public. More information and a schedule of the films to be included in this symposium can be found at www.theross.org. Below is a statement from Jon Jost about the symposium as well as a synopsis of his film HOMCOMING.

Jon Jost is a highly experienced filmmaker, who has worked in 16mm and 35mm (Panavision) and who shifted, of choice, to digital video in 1996 and had been a leader in this field since its inception.

Recipient of numerous grants, including a Guggenheim, DAAD, National Endowment for the Arts, ZKM, and others, his work is widely shown in festivals around the world ( Venice , Berlin , London , Sydney , Hong Kong , etc.). He has been accorded a full retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art , NYC (1991), as well as elsewhere ( Los Angeles , Madrid , Lisbon , Berlin , Bologna , and others), and was first recipient of the John Cassavetes Lifetime Achievement Award of the IFP.

He has conducted intensive workshops around the world, including Boston University, the Chicago Art Institute, and in London, New York, Kolkatta, Singapore, Perth, Brisbane, and innumerable other settings around the globe.

During is residency, Jost will be teaching digital video production in the Lincoln Public Schools and the Valentine, Nebraska area public schools. Jost will also be making a feature length narrative film about life in contemporary rural Great Plains dealing with current realities regarding agricultural, economic, and social conditions. In addition, Jost hopes to shoot several other feature length films. Finally, he will create a large-scale video installation piece to be exhibited at Modern Arts Midwest located in the Haymarket in Lincoln .

His residency is a collaborative project co-sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Arts Are Basic, a program that brings visiting artists to the campus under the auspices of the Hixson Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, and the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center.

All of the works completed by Jost and his students during his residency will be screened at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center .

Funding for this project is being provided by the Cooper Foundation, the Woods Charitable Fund, the Nebraska Arts Council, and with support from the Lincoln Arts Council. The Nebraska Arts Council, a state agency, has supported the programs of this organization through its matching grants program funded by the Nebraska Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. For more information, call the Nebraska Arts Council at 402.595.2122.

Digital Cinema: What Is It and What Can It Be?

A Symposium

Digital Video commenced in earnest about 10 years ago, and has incrementally moved into the traditional areas of cinema. While in most cases it has thus far been used primarily for its low cost and portability, as seen in many recent documentaries and "independent" features, its presence can also be seen in the ever more extravagant special effects in Hollywood, television, advertising, etc.

This will be a symposium looking at digitally made films of a wide variety, with the aim to explore the fuller impact of digital media on cinema - not only technically and aesthetically, but as well in the shifts it has, or can and will, make in terms of economics, distribution and exhibition, and the socio-political implications which these suggest.

We will watch each week a digitally made film, discussing its qualities and looking at the implications present in existing works, as well where these point to for the future.

[Persons taking this for class credit will be required to write a short essay on each film, and at the end in May, write an essay summarizing what they have learned and bringing their views to a conclusion.] –From Jon Jost

HOMECOMING by Jon Jost . Newport , Oregon . In a coastal town, Jeff and his wife Mattie work together facing the economic shifts. One son Chris, is unemployed; the other, Steve, is away on military service. Chris is lackadaisical and shiftless, Mattie perhaps drinks on the sly and tried to help her son, Jeff keeps his nose to the grind-wheel. Chris is dumped by his girlfriend, Jamie. Jeff scrambles to stay afloat. During a therapy session it is revealed that Chris is Jeff's step-son. Steve returns, but in a "transfer tube". Following his funeral, the family meets; an argument erupts, revealing the depths of the division between Jeff and Chris. In a counseling session Chris breaks down and is comforted by the counselor. Mattie and Jeff, lost in their grief, each lose their way. Chris visits the counselor at home, and is sexually seduced. Then he visits Jamie, hoping to resume their relationship. She is sympathetic about his brother's death. She refuses him, though, saying she's "doing well by herself". Chris throws himself off an ocean bluff, and Mattie and Jeff have another funeral.