I've been making experimental short films since 2003, first on Super-8 and now mostly on digital video. There was probably always an aspiring movie-maker in me. I started with my mom's super-8 camera as a kid. But the filmmaker friends I made at NYU, along with writing about film for several years, also fed my desire to pick up a camera. Portland has a vibrant experimental filmmaking community, and I owe a lot to people like Matt McCormick, Andy Blubaugh and Rob Tyler for inspiring and helping me to get started. I've also been influenced by Holland's Gerard Holthuis, New York's Peter Hutton, Chicago's Animal Charm, and Belgium's Chantal Ackerman as well as random stuff like the serene wordless montages they used to play at the end of Sunday Morning on CBS when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, or Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi.

I don't make narrative films; I've seen millions of them and feel no compulsion toward that kind of storytelling. Instead, I like capturing small details and moments and arranging them in a way that, if this were words, would seek to be poetry more than prose. But putting it that way also sounds more pretentious than I intend. These are just little three and four-minute camcorder pieces I spliced together on an old Mac.

A solo show of my films, called "Brian Libby: Travelogues", played at the Portland Art Museum's Northwest Film Center on June 7, 2007. Of the show, reviewer Marc Mohan of The Oregonian wrote, "Brian Libby definitely has an eye for images. His short films manage to meld the quotidian and the sublime, or rather perhaps expose the one within the other." Mike Thelin of Willamette Week wrote, "Libby does his best work charting the mundane, such as the quiet industrial landscape of Portland's Central Eastside or the flight patterns of a resident bird flock at the Darigold Creamery...The montage of images makes for an engaging exploration of physical space."

Ned Howard, Eric Schopmeyer and Elias Foley have been frequent music collaborators on many of these films, and I've also been fortunate to use (with permission) the work of French musician Colleen in two films and Washington DC's Beauty Pill for three films.

DVD collections of my films are available upon request.

FILMS

2010
Crossings*
Ocean Way
Trail of Three Cities
Pasadena Dreaming

2009
Across the Sound++
Seagulls and Waves++
The Falls*
Swift Landing
Washington-Monroe
They Start As Songs
Snow Day
Chinese Junket
Shinkanzen Corridor

2008
Forbidden City Rewind
Kyoto Diner+
Battersea to Chelsea
Range of Motion
Web Swingers
Nozomi Express
Ginza To Shibuya
Tokyo Protest
The Pelican
Benson Playoff

2007
Route 23++
Tianjin Highway
Hello Nassau**
Portland Project #1 (with Ned Howard)
Creamery Birds*
Roppongi Crossing
Rain and Reflection
PDX-LAX
Above & Beyond**
Isle of Staten
Go For That**
Demolition of the Rosefriend Apartments++

2006
Golden Bends
Electric City
Avenue & Interstate

2005
Tsukiji 5AM+
Super Terrific Shinjuku
Nocturne

2004
Kerra Skola

2003
Western Travelogue #2
Western Travelogue #1


* Judge's Award, Northwest Film & Video Festival
+ Official Selection, Northwest Film & Video Festival
++ Official Selection, Portland International Film Festival
** Official Selection, Denver 5 Minute Film Fest


Additional screenings: Route 23 played at London's Exploding Cinema. Roppongi Crossing was chosen for the Journal of Short Film's Volume 11 DVD compilation, released in May 2008. Crossings was screened at Seattle's NW Film Forum in 2010. Pasadena Dreaming screened at San Francisco's Artist Television Access Gallery as part of the Odds and Ends screening series.