Chris Shellen
Los Angeles, CA
Chris Shellen produced the award-winning documentary Marwencol. She began her career as a Creative Executive at the Paramount Pictures-based Cort Madden Company, where she developed projects such as the Emmy-winning HBO movie Something the Lord Made. In addition to collaborating with Jeff Malmberg on their current film Spettacolo, she is currently working on a book about Mark Hogancamp and his world of Marwencol to be published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2015.
From the Journal
- Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen Document the Real Power of Art February 22, 2017
Film still from Spettacolo by Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen
Spettacolo
Chris Shellen is a producer who works with her partner Jeff Malmberg.
Artist BioJeff Malmberg is a documentary director and editor.
Artist BioSpettacolo is a documentary about villagers in a small Italian farming town who preserve their heritage and confront their community issues by turning their lives into a play. The film tells the story of Monticchiello’s Teatro Povero (Poor Theatre), interweaving episodes from its past with vérité footage from the present as the villagers turn a series of blows—financial ruin, deaths, a dwindling future generation—into a play about the end of their world. Like a novel, each chapter acts as a puzzle piece, filling in details, illuminating issues, and forming a reminder of the value of culture, community and everything else we leave behind as we move forward.
Spettacolo premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas in 2017. It is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
From the Journal
What can art do in a time of turmoil? Documentary filmmakers Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen have made a career of showing how individuals and communities use art to work through personal, political and public issues. Their 2010 documentary Marwencol, which won numerous awards, documents how Mark Hogancamp uses photography and story-making to deal with a traumatic brain injury. A new film called Spettacolo–their Creative Capital project, premiering at SXSW in Austin, TX, on March 11–explores how villagers in a small Italian farming town preserve their heritage and confront community issues by turning their lives into an annual play.
Jeff Malmberg
Los Angeles, CA
Jeff Malmberg is a documentary director and editor. His film Marwencol has won over 25 international awards, including two Independent Spirit Awards and the Grand Jury prize for Best Documentary at the SXSW Film Festival. Malmberg was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013, as well as the Jacqueline Donnet Award from the International Documentary Association and Best New Filmmaker from the Boston Society of Film Critics. He works with his wife and partner Chris Shellen through their production company, Open Face.
From the Journal
- Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen Document the Real Power of Art February 22, 2017