Toney Merritt
Thousandsuns
Cinema
Toney Merritt (USA) is an American-born interdisciplinary artist working as an independent filmmaker, photographer, painter, and sculptor for over 50 years. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1979, and has completed more than 30 films since 1969 in experimental, narrative, and documentary genres. His films have screened at venues internationally, including La Cinémathèque Française (Paris), London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, Anthology Film Archives, Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, the Oakland Museum, the de Young Museum, Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine (Havana), San Francisco Cinematheque, and SFMoMA. He taught film at City College San Francisco and San Francisco State University, and has been a panelist for the Rockefeller and Jerome Foundations. Merritt was Program Director for the Mendocino Film Festival (2014–2015). Canyon Cinema distributes over 30 Merritt films covering the period of 1970 to 1998, all of which are currently under process of digitization. He lives and works in Healdsburg, California.
Revolution, 0.5 min, 1980
The closing sequence of my film Conquest Piece that stands up on its own feet. – Toney Merritt
EF, 4 min, 1979
Eternal flame. – Toney Merritt
All stills, photographs, and artwork courtesy Canyon Cinema and ©Toney Merritt. Screening co-presented with Canyon Cinema.