Blake Riesenfeld

Closure

A Multigenerational Look at Gillian’s Wonderland Pier.

"Closure" captures a sustained look at the historic Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, an amusement park in Ocean City, New Jersey, which permanently closed in October of 2024 after 60 years of operation. To aid in the home video aesthetic and serve the overarching theme of collapsing time, I recorded the project with 8mm film. In doing so, I utilize an older visual medium to capture a topic of contemporary concern to examine the transformation of New Jersey and ongoing patterns of erasure and gentrification.

Q&A

Fellowship Cohort: Fall 2024

Why did you choose this project? 
It is the project my fellowship supported. I’ve attended Gillian’s Wonderland Pier for almost twenty years, and its closure felt especially impactful because of my unique perspective on loss. 

How was this fellowship meaningful or impactful to you? 
Funding from the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts was instrumental in allowing me to take creative risks, such as recording with Super 8 film. 

Have you showcased this work in any other ways or places? Do you have any future plans related to this work? 
I have not showcased this work yet, but I've submitted to several film festivals and plan on screening it during my Media Honors Thesis exhibition this fall.

Blake Riesenfeld (b. 2004, Philadelphia, PA) is a photographer and artist-filmmaker whose practice reconciles with his family’s history of the Holocaust in Germany. By layering personal family documents with contemporary imagery through superimposition, Riesenfeld’s work reconstructs memory across generations. His work has been exhibited at the Adam D. Kamil Gallery during the 2024 and 2025 Adam D. Kamil Media Awards and in a fall 2024 solo exhibition. As of August 2025, he has received the Best Experimental Award at the Berlin Indie Film Festival, the Best College Short award at the New Jersey Film Awards, the Davis Film Society Award at the UC Davis Film Festival, and honorable mentions from both the San Diego Short Film Festival and the LA Underground Film Forum.