Edited work

Assembly

ASSEMBLY (SXSW, BFI Flare, Frameline49) is a feature documentary that follows interdisciplinary New Orleans-born artist Rashaad Newsome, as he creates the biggest show of his career in an unlikely location: a historic military training facility in the wealthiest neighborhood in Manhattan. Rashaad uses the spirit of collage to meld performance, sculpture, video, and technology into a multi-dimensional experience, culminating in a monumental performance and exhibition at Park Avenue Armory in NYC, called “Assembly”.

Complete with a 30-foot hologram, a gospel choir, the best vogue dancers from the US, Senegal, Japan, Brazil and Ukraine, and a non-binary artificial intelligence “Being” – Rashaad transforms a bunker of colonization into a sanctuary for Black queer healing and celebration.

Check out the artist, Rashaad: https://rashaadnewsome.com/

Film’s IG: www.instagram.com/assemblythefilm/

For screenings, award info & tickets, visit http://assemblythefilm.com/

Read this Adobe blog about Ash Verwiel’s journey editing ASSEMBLY

Before the After

How do you remain undefeated when your own body gives up on you? Choreographer, dancer, activist, artist, professor, and Buddhist, Mark Allan Davis discovers what it means to be ill in a world that’s tired of illness. Through an extensive collection of archival footage and personal videos to Mark’s best friend Stacey, in this short documentary we learn about his ‘before’ journey, with faith that there will be an ‘after’.

Juju [Bodies of Belief]

This film is part of a larger project sponsored by a German art foundation called “Death Where is Thy Sting?”, which focuses on body endurance in death. My good friend and collaborator James Martel traveled to Pakistan to find the spiritual power source of his passed friend Nasser Hussain, while dealing with the reality of what it means to believe.

Take Five

The art of being a body is one that is endlessly productive and creative even as we encounter in our bodies a kind of alien power, one that we mercifully are not fully in control of. Three subjects are asked to talk about and perform what it means to be a body who works with other bodies.

This film is part of a larger project sponsored by a German art foundation called “Death Where is Thy Sting?”, which focuses on body endurance in death. This film, however, is intended to focus on life, rather than on loss, to see how we occupy and endure our bodies while we are alive. A tattoo artist, a dancer and a healer describe how they can push beyond the perceived limits of the body and describe how the body holds its own agency and power.