Interview with Francisco Bello - Audiolibro Gratis

Francisco Bello graduated from The Cooper Union School of Art in 2002. As an Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker, Bello has been involved in creating many films including “Salim Baba," "War Don Don," “Code of the West,” and "The First Wave.” A principal at Ropa Vieja Films, Bello is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Cinema Editors. In this interview he discusses his experiences as an art student at The Cooper Union in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including memories of faculty such as Bob Breer and Jim Hoberman; what it was like to be a film student in the turning point era when digital was only just becoming available; commuting to school through check-points after 9/11; and memories of the East Village in the late nineties, mainly browsing at Kim’s Video.

This interview took place on October 21, 2024.

1:00 – process and reasoning of applying to Cooper in the late 1990s

5:15 – first impressions of Cooper

7:30 – decision to focus on filmmaking and description of film department

11:15 – learning film and video at the turning point just as digital technology became available and the exorbitant cost of early digital technology

15:35 – paid internships through Cooper’s career center, and how they led to work on Coppola’s Megalopolis the summer after college

19:07 – approach to film as object and experimentalism created by faculty such as Stan Brakhage and Robert Breer

21:45 – how Cooper education helped inform his interest in and strategy for documentary filmmaking

27:23 – commuting to school from Ossining and treating college like a job

29:38 – East Village memories, particularly Kim’s Video and the beauty of browsing

36:58 – memory of drawing professor Larry Brown, and experiences around drawing in general

43:11 – memories of photo department faculty Norman Sanders and Tony Gonzalez

44:00 – memories of HSS professor Jim Hoberman and his knowledge of film history

51:15 – description of old Hewitt Building and memories of Frankie’s playing movies

53:53 – being a student during and after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center

57:23 – increased awareness of politics in student work today as opposed to in early aughts

1:01:38 – gaining experience in Cooper internship program

1:07:23 – experimentation and assignments in student work

1:08:33 – memories of film lab technician Dan Porvin, and faculty Rita Meyers, and Michael Shamberg

1:12:02 – memories of film professor Bob Breer

1:18:42 – post-graduation career as documentary filmmaker