# Jake Yuzna

Jake Yuzna is an American film director, screenwriter, and curator. Their debut feature Open was the first American film to win the Teddy Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and in 2005 Yuzna become the youngest recipient of funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Although known mainly for their work in film, Yuzna has curated several retrospectives, exhibitions and special projects. In 2010, they founded the first cinema program at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. Between 2011 - 2013 they organized the first fellowship, publication and conference to argue nightlife as a form of contemporary art. In addition, Yuzna has authored books on contemporary art, design, and culture as well as contributed to Artforum.
They have also curated the first American retrospectives of artists and filmmakers including Alejandro Jodorowsky, Sion Sono, Gregg Araki, Francois Sagat, and Quentin Crisp. In addition, Yuzna curated the first museum surveys of Metamodernsim, the New French Extremity, and the medium of VHS.
Yuzna is the son of poet Susan Yuzna and nephew to horror film director and producer Brian Yuzna.

## Filmography

| Year | Film |
| 2004 | Between the Boys (short) |
| 2005 | Better Left Alone (short) |
| 2010 | Open |
| 2017 | The Knife - Live At Terminal 5 |
| 2021 | After America |

## Awards and honors

* 2005: "Special Jury Award for Artistic Risktaking" from IFP
* 2010: "Teddy Jury Prize" for Open (60th Berlin Film Festival)
* 2010: "Best Narrative Feature" for Open (TLV Festival)
* 2010: "Best Performance" for Morty Diamond in Open (New Fest)
* 2012: Creative Capital Award in Filmmaking
* 2018: "Richard P. Rogers Spirit of Excellence Award" from the America Film Institute
* 2019: "McKnight Fellowship in Media Artists" from McKnight Foundation and FilmNorth
* 2020: "The Blood List" from British Horror Film Festival
* 2021: "Guggenheim Fellowship" from John Simon Guggenheim Foundation

## Publications

| Year | Project |
| 2013 | THE FUN: The Social Practice of Nightlife in NYC |
| 2014 | NYC Makers |
| 2022 | No Joke: Humor as Resistance |
| 2023 | Content and Its Discontents |

## Curation

| Year | Project |
| 2010 | Blood into Gold: The Cinematic Alchemy of Alejandro Jodorowsky |
| 2011 | The Home Front: American Design Now |
| 2011 | François Sagat: The New Leading Man |
| 2011 | Sion Sono: The New Poet |
| 2011 - 2013 | THE FUN Fellowship in the Social Practice of Nightlife |
| 2012 | No Wave Cinema |
| 2012 | Argento: Il Cinema Nel Sangue |
| 2012 | VHS |
| 2013 | It Is Crispin Hellion Glover |
| 2013 | After the Museum |
| 2013 | Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Quentin Crisp |
| 2013 | Without Compromise: The Cinema of William Klein |
| 2013 | God Help Me: Gregg Araki |
| 2014 | NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial |
| 2014 | Life with Technology: The Cinema of Godfrey Reggio |
| 2015 | It's Hard to be Human: The Cinema of Roy Andersson |
| 2015 | The Director Must Not Be Credited: 20 Years of Dogme 95 |
| 2015 | The Unseen Cinema of HR Giger |
| 2015 | Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time |
| 2018 | Plastic Futures and Premillennial Tensions: 1990s Science Fiction Cinema before a New Millennium |
| 2023 | Eve Fowler: A Universal Shudder (co-curated with BF Hall) |
| 2023 | Make Sense of This: Visitors Respond to the Walker’s Collection (co-curator) |