Desert X 2021 – The Film

Desert X 2021 – The Film is a documentary and a filmic catalog to allow audiences from around the world to enjoy and understand the recent Desert X exhibition in the Coachella Valley.

The film is part of the Official Selection of the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival. It will be screened on Saturday April 9 at 7:30pm PT at the Camelot Theater in Palm Springs. For tickets click here.

The film has been selected for the Riviera International Film Festival in Sestri Levante, Italy. It will be screened as part of the festival May 10 – 15, 2022. For more information click here.

The film is on view here as part of KCET’s original series ARTBOUND.

In 56 minutes, Desert X 2021 – The Film goes behind the scenes of the exhibition, which was curated by artistic director Neville Wakefield with co-curator César García-Alvarez. It offers atypical insight into the commissioned works by the 12 participating artists from eight countries who were invited by the curators to explore the desert as both a place and idea, and to look deeply at current ideas and societal movements – those essential to the sustenance of our future and identity– and to the histories, realities and possibilities of the Coachella Valley and its communities.

The film, to be broadcast November 3rd on KCET, offers intimate visits to the artists’ studios in Ghana, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, United Kingdom, Guatemala; and the USA. Learn about the artists’ processes and the topics they chose to explore, among them the Native American Land Back movement, climate change and water rights, histories of feminism and the urgent issues facing Black lives. This documentary is at once a record of the past tumultuous 18 months through the eyes and voices of some of the most well-known artists and a timely piece that poses urgent questions about the past while imagining the possibilities of a shared future.

Desert X 2021 – The Film
USA / 56 minutes
Directed by Dylan Robertson and produced by Zoe Lukov for Desert X.
The Executive Producer is Richard Mille. The film will premiere on November 3 on KCET as part of KCET’s original series ARTBOUND.