Death in the Archive

Directed by David Sherman

Death in the Archive is an inquiry into forgotten films and artists’ lives, tracing a path from personal to institutional archives. The film unfolds as a historical montage and diaristic mapping of visionary Beat filmmakers of San Francisco’s North Beach, conjuring the celluloid bodies and creative metabolisms that persist amid the human and material mortality of artists, images, and fragile film stocks. Fragments of Dion Vigné, Jordan Belson, and Christopher MacLaine intertwine with personal histories and cinematic visions, constructing an archaeology of memory. Preservation of both media and life becomes an ephemeral transmission — the fragile survival of memory. Gestures, voices, and images endure, transcending time and material limits, as the film bears witness to absence, endurance, and the persistent life of creative imagination.