Co-presented by the Walker Art Center

This program is presented in tandem with the MSPIFF screening of BENITA (2025), a documentary about Raphan’s work and life directed by Alan Berliner.

“I am interested in revisiting a life or a career from the very start, from the beginning; the basic concept as initial thought, as an impulse, as an ineffable compulsion, an intuition; to reframe and reinvent an action as simple as one pair of hands touching pencil to paper.” —Benita Raphan (1962–2021)

Benita Raphan made lyrical, diaristic films that sought to unravel the mysteries of creative and inventive minds. This program celebrates Raphan’s work by presenting six short films from the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection at the Walker Art Center. With subjects including Edwin Land, John Nash, Jr., R. Buckminster Fuller and Helen Keller, Raphan combines an ensemble of voice-over narrators with carefully collaged visual fragments to create a new form of cinematic biography. Beginning with her first short film and culminating in a film commissioned by the Walker, this program traces the evolution of Raphan’s experimental documentary practice across two decades.

Works in the program:
The Immediate Subject (1986). 6 min.
Within/Without (1989). 10 min.
Absence Stronger Than Presence (2000). 7 min.
2+2 (2002). 11 min.
The Critical Path (2004). 14 min.
Great Genius and Profound Stupidity (2008). 27 min.
Total runtime: 75 min.

Benita Raphan was an interdisciplinary filmmaker and artist known for her experimental visual biographies of eccentric and luminary thinkers. Born in Manhattan, Raphan studied film at the School of Visual Arts in New York, earned an MFA from the Royal College of Art in London, and spent years in Paris working as a graphic designer. Her films have been presented on HBO, PBS, and Channel 4 Television, and have screened at the Sundance, Tribeca, and Telluride Film Festivals.