Abraham Ravett was born in Poland in 1947, raised in Israel and emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1955. He holds a B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Filmmaking and Photography and has been an independent filmmaker for the past twenty years. Mr. Ravett received grants for his work from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Artists Foundation Inc, Boston, MA., The Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, The Japan Foundation, The Hoso Bunka Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. His films have been screened internationally including the Museum of Modern Art, Anthology Film Archives, The Collective For Living Cinema, N.Y.C., Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, CA., S.F. Cinematheque, L.A. Forum, Innis Film Society, Toronto, Canada, and Image Forum, Tokyo, Japan. http://hampshire.edu/~arPF/

HORSE/KAPPA/HOUSE 33 min., b/w & color, sound, 16mm, 1995
Director: Abraham Ravett

Iwate Prefecture in northeastern Japan is the setting for The Legends of Tono (Tono monogatari), a unique collection of regional folk tales, gathered in the early 20th Century by Yanagita Kunio. The tales manifest and explain invisible forces and malevolent events which shape the psycho-cultural dimensions of Japanese indigenous beliefs and folk faith.

Inspired by The Legends of Tono, HORSE/KAPPA/HOUSE, records the surrounding landscape in a number of small villages throughout Iwante Prefecture in order to create a cinematic space which echoes by implication and association, the external and unseen world in the environment. The film embodies the idea so eloquently stated by noted historian, Mr. Umehara Takeshi, that "all living things-animals and plants, as well as mountains, rivers, and other natural phenomena have spirits and that these spirits are constantly moving back and forth between Heaven and this world, forming the basis of the Japanese ethos." The form of the film was shaped in the editing and post-production process, as Ravett sought to embody the ephemeral into material form. He utilized a combination of time lapse cinematography, animation, optical printing and intertitles to provide a context for a broader understanding of the legends. The audio track- a conbination of indigenous sounds, field recordings of religious ceremonies, plus Komori Uta (lullabies) chanted by Aba Yae, a renowned singer and local farmer, adds a haunting, emotionally charged layer of meaning to the visual tapestry. For example, Dendera Field, seen today as a lovely pastoral landscape, was historically the site where children abandoned elderly parents who were seen as no longer productive. Framed by the sounds of birds chirping, the long, timelapse view of Dendrea Field is presented as a space of loss, memory, and collective history. Funded by the Hoso Bunka Foundation, The Japan Foundation, and a Filmmaking Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Forgefeel 12 min., color, sound, 16mm, 1997 Director: Abraham Ravett The landscape is a rendered playground at a San Francisco Public School. "Forgefeel," is the Yiddish word for premonition.

Half Sister 22 min., color, sound, 16mm, 1985 Director: Abraham Ravett A recently discovered photograph of my half sister who was killed in the German concentration camp of Auschwitz, inspires the imagination to concieve a life that would have been.