Denah Johnston

Denah Johnston employs optical printing and hand development in her filmmaking, leaving a certain degree of her process to chance operations. Currently Johnston is exploring various methods of re-photography, sound construction and manipulation in her new works with found footage source materials. Influenced by Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren and the writings of William S. Burroughs, she has most recently screened films in Boston, Fargo, San Francisco, Sydney, Malaysia, Saint Petersburg, Russia and Berlin. She has also shown work at New Nothing Cinema in San Francisco, California, Offi Cinema Festival in Bologna, Italy, Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California and the Athens International Film & Video Festival, where she received a Juror's Prize for Best Experimental Film (flux 2004 and Devil's Dairymaid 2009). She has been curating film screenings globally for three years and the Bay Area for seven years. Most recently she spearheaded the Queer Underground programming at the San Francisco Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in June 2009 and organized and moderated a panel supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has exhibited photography works in Italy and the Czech Republic, and has collaborated extensively with artists in various fields including DJs, painters, musicians and dancers.