A chance meeting in Havana with legendary Cuban film propagandist Santiago Alvarez changed the course
of Travis Wilkerson’s life. He now makes films in the tradition of the “third cinema,” wedding politics to form
in an indivisible manner. In 2015, Sight & Sound called Wilkerson “the political conscience of American
cinema.” His films have screened at scores of venues and festivals worldwide, including Sundance, Toronto,
Locarno, Rotter-dam, Vienna, Yamagata, the FID Marseille and the Musée du Louvre. His best-known work
is an agit-prop essay on the lynching of Wobbly Frank Little called “An Injury to One,” named one of the best
avant-garde films of the decade by Film Comment. His most recent fiction feature, “Machine Gun or
Writer?” premiered at Locarno 2015 and was awarded Best International Feature at DokuFest (Kosovo). It
has since screened worldwide and was recognized as one the finest films of the year on numerous lists
including La Furia Umana and DesistFilm. His writings on film have appeared in Cineaste, Kino!, and Senses
of Cinema. He has taught filmmaking at the University of Colorado and Film Directing at CalArts, and was
the inaugural Visiting Fellow of Media Praxis in the Pomona College Media Guild. Presently, he is a Visiting
Assistant Professor of Film at Vassar College. He is also the founding Editor of Now: A Journal of Urgent
Praxis.
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