Ben Balcom is a filmmaker and educator currently living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is the co-founder and programmer of Microlights Cinema, an artist-run microcinema which has been operating since 2013 and has hosted artists from around the world. Drop a line any time to benbalcom@gmail.com
Recently, his films have taken a lyrical approach to documenting the spaces and legacies of now-defunct experimental schools. Prior to that he made a series of introspective landscape films that engaged with Milwaukee’s progressive political past and contemporary anxieties about the future. Earlier films used abstraction to explore the tensions between perception and communication, with a reflexive attention on the medium itself. These films have been exhibited around the world at venues and festivals such as The Museum of Moving Image, European Media Arts Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, IndieLisboa, Media City Film Festival, Alchemy Film, and Slamdance. The films have received awards at Onion City Film Festival, Athens International Film & Video Festival, and Ann Arbor Film Festival. Recently, Balcom was a fellow at the Center for 21st Century Studies at UW-Milwaukee.
Balcom received his MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his BA in Film-Video Production from Hampshire College.