Ernie Gehr

Who is Ernie Gehr?

Ernie Gehr is an American experimental filmmaker closely associated with the Structural film movement of the 1970s. A self-taught artist, Gehr was inspired to begin making films in the 1960s after chancing upon a screening of a Stan Brakhage film. Gehr's film Serene Velocity has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Gehr served as faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute.

The New York Times described Gehr's work as "abstract, beautiful, mysterious, invigorating, utopian" saying he had "embraced [the] Modernist cry, shunning mainstream narrative to make films in which bubbling grain, streaks of color and pulses of light are the main attraction."

His films are distributed by Canyon Cinema in San Francisco.