Kurt Vincent is a director, producer, and editor of documentary and fiction films.
He received his Bachelor of Arts from Denison University with a major in philosophy and minor in cinema. His start in film was interning for Albert Maysles. His films have been exhibited in numerous venues including MoMA PS1, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Museum of Chinese in America, the Northwest Film Forum, Metrograph, Rooftop Films, XOXO Fest, among others.
His work has been written about in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Vogue, Vice, Village Voice, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and NPR, as well as other publications. He has appeared as a guest on the Bowery Boys podcast, Wrong Reel podcast, and the Marty McSorley show on WFMU.
Vincent’s debut feature, The Lost Arcade (2016), about the last arcade in New York City, premiered internationally at the 2016 International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film is an intimate portrait of the Chinatown Fair arcade, which was home to a diverse community of teenagers where video games served as an outlet for competition, self-expression, and human connection.
Vincent’s debut feature, The Lost Arcade (2016), about the last arcade in New York City, premiered internationally at the 2016 International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film is an intimate portrait of the Chinatown Fair arcade, which was home to a diverse community of teenagers where video games served as an outlet for competition, self-expression, and human connection.
The critically-acclaimed documentary went on to screen at the Open City Documentary Festival in London, IFFBoston, Melbourne International Film Festival, The critically-acclaimed documentary had a theatrical run at New York’s Metrograph and San Francisco’s Roxy Theatre, and was acquired by a division of Lionsgate. The New York Times wrote, “Part scrappy, part sweet and wholly enjoyable, “The Lost Arcade” is a love letter to a vanished piece of New York, and a little wish for the future.” The film is currently part of the Factory 25 catalog.
In 2016, Vincent co-founded 26 Aries, a filmmaking collaborative and creative studio with writer and director Irene Kim Chin. Their recent work includes Friends Of Wonder (2017), a Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett concert film and documentary about a 1920s movie palace saved from demolition by community activists who turned the space into a community arts center. The film captures the group putting on a Vile and Barnett concert, weaving together the story of the theatre with the musical friendship between Vile and Barnett. The film and the process of making it was the subject of an online digital experience as part of the WePresent series presented by WeTransfer.
Vincent and Chin received a Vimeo Staff Pick for their narrative short film, How It’s Goin’ (2019), a bittersweet comedy about a father’s journey through San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The film was an official selection of NoBudge and Omeleto. It has been streamed more than 193,000 times.
Recently, Vincent and Chin have directed and edited the upcoming Alice Schille documentary, a 30-minute film about the twentieth century American painter who has experienced a critical reappraisal thanks to historical revisionism spearheaded by a father and daughter partnership. The film is endorsed by The Columbus Foundation, who provided a grant, and received fiscal support from the Columbus Museum of Art. The film is set to be released in October 2020.
Kurt has served as a mentor for Reel Voices, Pacific Arts Movement’s high school documentary program.