Filmmaker and music video director AG (Andres Gonzalez) Rojas will give a virtual presentation at Southern Illinois University Carbondale on Wednesday, April 17.
The free, public discussion is at 3 p.m. in the Communications Building Northlight Studio, Room 1251, or virtually via Zoom.
Rojas, who lives in Los Angeles, started his career by directing music videos and has earned nominations from the Directors Guild of America for his commercial work. He has directed music videos for artists including Common, Bon Iver, Florence and the Machine, Jack White, Gil-Scott Heron and more. He has also directed global advertising campaigns for brands such as Nike, Apple and Adidas. Rojas’ latest work, “Pare de Sufrir,” is his first longform film and a “musical meditation on the spiritual weight of grief,” said Heather M. O’Brien-Takahashi, an assistant professor in cinema and interdisciplinary media in the School of Media Arts.
In 2020, Rojas premiered “Godchild,” a traveling film installation commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services in honoring legendary musicians Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. He also collaborated in 2017 with composer Kamasi Washington on a film installation titled “Truth.”
Rojas’ said his work “questions the hierarchical systems under which filmmaking generally operates and suggesting more peaceful ways of approaching filmmaking.”
The event is organized by O’Brien-Takahashi and sponsored by the School of Media Arts and the SIU Fine Arts Activity Fee.
