Jacob Kessler is a documentary filmmaker and educator based in New York City. Drawing from ethnofiction, his films emerge through intimate collaborations with participants and emphasize the tactile materiality of 16mm film to explore intersubjective and sensorial experience.
Jacob’s work has screened in festivals and cinemas across the globe including CUFF (Chicago), Mimesis (Boulder), LUFF (Lausanne), La Lumière Collective (Montreal), Baltic Analog Lab (Riga), Spectacle (NYC), NoBudge (streaming), among others. His latest film, Radio Jammer, was awarded the Jury Prize at Grain Urbain (Paris) and Best in Show at ICDOCS (Iowa City). Jacob is currently co-directing One Long Arm Blind, a feature-length documentary examining the history and ecology of Chicago’s Bubbly Creek, supported by the University of Iowa Arts and Humanities Initiative.
Jacob holds an MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University. He has taught at the University of Iowa as an Assistant Professor of Instruction, served as Programming Director for the Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, and is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College.