Gravel
Steven Bognar
Steven Bognar is an independent filmmaker and media arts educator whose films focus on regional identity, the Midwestern landscape, and the significance of photographic images.
Artist BioGravel, a short narrative shot on 16mm and Beta-SP video, weaves several relationships in one story. A mother is attracted to an ex-convict and takes her teenage daughter on a road trip to meet him. Ambivalent, the daughter brings along her skateboarder friend. As the two weathered adults define their relationship, the memory of the girl’s dead grandmother hovers over the story. Gravel is concerned with the capturing of photographs and the importance of images in the characters’ lives. Told in an elliptical manner that lets viewers assemble the events of the film, Gravel is set against the haunted, impersonal quality of Midwestern Appalachia’s urban landscape.
Steven Bognar
Yellow Springs, OH
Steven Bognar is an independent filmmaker and media arts educator whose films focus on regional identity, the Midwestern landscape, and the significance of photographic images. His films include American Factory, A Lion in the House, Gravel, Picture Day, Personal Belongings and Welcome to Censornati. Bognar’s work has been screened at the Sundance Film Festival, the DoubleTake Documentary Festival, South by Southwest, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and has aired on PBS, the Independent Film Channel and Deep Dish Television. He is a contributor to Independent Film and Video Monthly and has taught at Antioch College and in Ohio public schools. Bognar‘s film American Factory was the first to be produced by Higher Productions, a film company founded by the Obamas, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film is streaming on Netflix.