Forum Expanded

Let There Be Whistleblowers

A train passes through a tunnel and hurtles on to a station as time and space are distorted, set to the first part of Steve Reich’s “Drumming”. “The sound lends the film an almost voodoo-like atmosphere, not to mention accruing sexual overtones, as the locomotive enters and reenters a tunnel, or blurry patches of grey and white turn out to be passengers waving white handkerchiefs from open windows, like some ambiguous ancient ritual. History dissolves and becomes a facet of perception while both railways and film become means of twisting perception, as the subversive double meaning of the title’s ‘whistleblowers’ suggests.” Kirsty Bell, “Frieze Magazine”, October 2014. Let There Be Whistleblowers constitutes an early foray into digital media, incorporating editing techniques developed in analogue film and specifically the Nervous System performances, in which the duo would manipulate multiple 16mm film projectors to achieve 3D depth effects from two-dimensional imagery – an optical effect that Jacobs called “Eternalism”. Presented in memory of Flo and Ken Jacobs, the film was originally screened in Forum Expanded’s second edition in 2007. Until their passing in June and October of last year, respectively, the New York couple were close friends of the Arsenal, as well as of Berlinale Forum and Forum Expanded.

by Ken Jacobs, Flo Jacobs
18'
USA 2005

Short Film

Credits

Crew

Directors
- Ken Jacobs,
- Flo Jacobs

Ken Jacobs

Ken Jacobs (1933–2025) studied painting with Hans Hofmann from 1956 to 1957. He started making films in 1955. In 1966, Jacobs founded the Millennium Film Workshop, of which he was the director until 1968. A year later, he started the Department of Cinema at the State University of New York in Binghamton. He taught there from 1974 until his retirement in 2000. Along with teaching cinema, he made a number of experimental films and videos which have been shown worldwide. In addition, he presented a series of film performances under the names “The Nervous System” from the mid-1970s and “The Nervous Magic Lantern” from 2000.

Filmography (selection)

1955 Orchard Street ()
1960 Little Stabs at Happiness ()
1964 Window ()
1990 Opening the Nineteenth Century: 1896 ()
1999 Flo Rounds a Corner ()
2003 Keeping an Eye on Stan ()
2004 Star Spangled to Death ()
2005 Spiral Nebula (); Let There Be Whistleblowers ()
2011 Seeking the Monkey King ()
2013 A Primer in Sky Socialism (); The Guests ()
2014 Cyclops Observes the Celestial Bodies ()
2016 Ulysses in the Subway (); Popeye Sees 3D ()
2019 The Whole Shebang ()

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026

Flo Jacobs

Flo Jacobs (1941–2025) was a New York-based painter, producer and filmmaker closely associated with the American avant-garde film scene. After leaving art school in the early 1960s, she worked with experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, producing and performing in many of his projects and co-founding the Millennium Film Workshop in 1966. Jacobs appeared in and helped shape key works of expanded cinema and collaborated across film, performance and visual art.

Filmography

2016 Ulysses in the Subway ()

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026

Dates

WedFeb 1820:30

Cinema Betonhalle@Silent Green

The short film 'Let there be Whistleblowers

Programme 11

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