Garden City Beautiful
ABOUT
One sunny afternoon in the middle west, suspended in a time between, two commuters daydream about a life lived otherwise.
Ben Balcom (b. 1986, Massachusetts) is a filmmaker currently living and working in Milwaukee, WI. He is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee and is the co-founder and co-programmer of Microlights Cinema. Since 2013, Microlights has hosted over 50 film and video artists from around the world. Find out more about Microlights can be found at microlightscinema.org. His films have been exhibited at venues and festivals such as the European Media Festival, Media City Film Festival, Anti-Matter Media Arts, Alchemy Film, Ann Arbor Film Festival and Slamdance. Combining elements of documentary, fictional narrative, and abstraction, Balcom’s cinematic vocabulary is multi-faceted. He has explored melodrama, essay film, and, most recently, regional histories. Balcom received his MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his bachelor’s degree in Film-Video Production from Hampshire College.