The Passage Clock: For Walter Benjamin (2008)

Inspired by Walter Benjamin, Chris Marker, and other artists who explore time and displacement, this film is a tribute to their work. Fleeing fascism in the 1930s, Benjamin found refuge in Paris, where the National Library became his sanctuary. There, he secretly left behind a copy of his unfinished Arcades Project, *Das Passagen-Werk*. The film's narrative largely originated from a collaborative word association exercise with Patti Smith, using dictionary definitions of "passage," which I later refined and expanded upon with my own writing. –Jem Cohen