{{Short description|British filmmaker and artist}} '''Adam Kossoff''' is a British filmmaker and artist.

== Early life and education == Kossoff was born in London. He gained a degree in film and photography at the Polytechnic of Central London (now University of Westminster) in 1980. In 2008 he was awarded his PhD with the dissertation "On Terra Firma: Space, Place and the Moving Image", by the Royal College of Art.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mazier |first=Michael |date=8 December 2008 |title=Viva |url=file:///Users/kasia/Desktop/AVPHD_LRG_PRINT[1].pdf |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=13 August 2024 |website=Viva Viva}}</ref>

== Career == Kossoff began his career working as a playwright, with plays performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Soho Theatre and at Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Kossoff then worked in the film and TV industry for a number of years, writing and directing documentaries and drama films.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kossoff |first=Adam |date=23 July 2024 |title=FEINART |url=https://feinart.org/dr-adam-kossoff/ |access-date=23 July 2024 |website=The Future of European Independent Art Spaces In A Period of Socially Engaged Art}}</ref> He made several films for Channel 4 including ''East Enders Against the Grain'' (1988), on the representation of the East End of London in film, ''Arm in Arm Together'' (1989),<ref>{{Cite web |last=British Film Institute |first=BFI |date=13 August 2024 |title=Collections British Film Institute |url=https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150352125 |access-date=13 August 2024 |website=Collections Search BFI}}</ref> about Anglo-Soviet relations and home front propaganda during World War II, and ''Turbulence'' (1992), starring Kelly Marcel and Cathy Tyson, that looked at the issue of family sexual abuse.

From 2004-2021, Kossoff was a reader in film in the School of Art at the University of Wolverhampton.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kossoff |first=Adam |date=23 July 2024 |title=FEINART |url=https://feinart.org/dr-adam-kossoff/ |access-date=23 July 2024 |website=The Future of Independent Art Spaces In a Period of Socially Engaged Art}}</ref> He has written for various journals<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kossoff |first=Adam |title=Spatial location and the relative thinness of the image |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1386/jmpr.9.3.257_1 |journal=Journal of Media Practice |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=257–269 |via=Taylor and Francis Online}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Kossoff |first=Adam |date=11 January 2011 |title=RUING THE RUINS |url=https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/ruing-ruins |access-date=23 July 2024 |website=Mute}}</ref> and edited books, mainly focusing on issues of praxis and technics in the work of Walter Benjamin and Bernard Stiegler.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kossoff |first=Adam |date=23 July 2024 |title=The Mobile Phone and the Flow of Things |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137469816_4 |access-date=23 July 2024 |website=SpringerLink}}</ref>

Kossoff has made experimental and essayistic films that have been screened at galleries and international film festivals: * ''Moscow Diary'' (2012), filmed on a mobile phone, retraced the footsteps of Walter Benjamin's 1926-27 ''Moscow Diary''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Prouty |first=Richard |date=24 May 2012 |title=Moscow Diary Redux |url=https://onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2012/05/moscow-diary-redux.html |access-date=4 July 2024 |website=One Way Street Aesthetics and Politics}}</ref> * ''Made in Wolverhampton'' (2012), narrated by Sean Foley, it explored the melancholic identity and the changing nature of place and space in an English post-industrial city.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wilson |first=Mark |date=14 March 2012 |title=Mmm, maps: filming locations and locations of films |url=https://www.stillwalking.org/blog/2018/8/24/9hlqygmsvny5er8vfc54qgewnj3ygz |access-date=4 July 2024 |website=Still Walking}}</ref> * ''The Anarchist Rabbi'' (2015), narrated by Steven Berkoff, focused on the East End haunts of German-born anarchist Rudolf Rocker.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kinna |first=Ruth |date=November 2014 |title=The Anarchist Rabbi |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1635249133?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals |access-date=4 July 2024 |website=ProQuest}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sandhu |first=Sukhdev |date=October 2014 |title=Sight & Sound: the November 2014 issue |url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/november-2014-issue |access-date=4 July 2024 |website=BFI}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Porton |first=Richard |title=Film and the Anarchist Imagination |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-0252085246 |edition=2nd |pages=240–241 |language=English}}</ref> * ''One Or the Other'' (2017), an essay film looking issues around the homeland and the nation state in Israel and Palestine.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Taylor |first=Meredith |date=17 April 2018 |title=One or the Other (2017) {{!}} East End Film Festival 2018 |url=https://filmuforia.com/one-or-the-other/ |access-date=4 July 2024 |website=Filmforia}}</ref> * ''Through the Bloody Mists of Time'' (2020), narrated by Esther Leslie, uses a slowed down 9.5 mm film film of the 1937 Paris Exhibition featuring an imaginary voice-over dialogue between Walter Benjamin and Humphrey Jennings. * ''Jackals and Arabs'' (by Franz Kafka) (2022) narrated by Mohammad Bakri. * ''In The Loop of History'' (2020), an archival essay, is concerned with nationhood and history as myth in Israel-Palestine.

== Selected filmography == * 2024 ''Walking Backwards'' * 2022 ''Downstream''<ref>{{Cite web|url= https://www.ica.art/films/shorts-thinking-around-and-outside |title=ICA &#124; Shorts Programme: Thinking Around and Outside|website=www.ica.art}}</ref> * 2022 Jackals and Arabs<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kossoff |first=Adam |date=23 July 2024 |title=Jackals and Arabs (by Franz Kafka) |url=https://vimeo.com/788238117 |access-date=23 July 2024 |website=Vimeo}}</ref> * 2020 ''In The Loop of History''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://vimeo.com/408787775|title=In The Loop of History on Vimeo}}</ref> * 2019 ''Through The Bloody Mists Of Time''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/through-the-bloody-mists-of-time/|title=Walter Benjamin and Humphrey Jennings: Through the Bloody Mists of Time}}</ref> * 2017 ''One Or The Other'' * 2015 ''The Anarchist Rabbi''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://vimeo.com/245762198|title=The Anarchist Rabbi excerpt on Vimeo}}</ref> * 2015 ''How They Hate Us'' * 2014 ''Animal Architecture''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/whats-on/animal-architecture-adam-kossoff/|title=Animal Architecture by Adam Kossoff|website=wolverhamptonart.org.uk}}</ref> * 2011 ''Made In Wolverhampton''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.stillwalking.org/blog/2018/8/24/9hlqygmsvny5er8vfc54qgewnj3ygz|title=Mmm, maps: filming locations and locations of films|date=March 14, 2012|website=Still Walking}}</ref> * 2011 ''Moscow Diary''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fidmarseille.org/film/moscow-diary/|title=MOSCOW DIARY – FIDMarseille}}</ref>

== References == <references />

== External links == * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvWVUm1w_k&t=106s Video discussion - Adam Kossoff and Esther Leslie Walter Benjamin and Humphrey Jennings: Through the Bloody Mists of Time] * [https://vimeo.com/adamkossoff Vimeo - Adam Kossoff home page] * [https://vimeo.com/360749659 Vimeo Trailer - Through the Bloody Mists Of Time (2020)] * [https://lux.org.uk/adam-kossoff-trilogy-dvd/ DVDs Trilogy]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kossoff, Adam}} Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:English filmmakers Category:Film people from London Category:Alumni of the University of Westminster Category:Academics of the University of Wolverhampton Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Art Category:English male dramatists and playwrights