In October 1989, estranged friends Bob Fleischner and Jack Smith died within a week of each other. Ken Jacobs met Smith through Fleischner in 1955 at CUNY night school, where the three were studying camera techniques. This feature-length work, first performed in 1989 as a live Nervous System piece, is a "luminous threnody" (Mark McElhatten) made in response to the loss of Jacobs' friends.Jacobs had especially worked very closely with Smith and thanks to their cooperation he had a treasure trove of film material by the two artists. Two Wrenching Departures provides insight into the early years of the New York new cinema in a way that makes the visual opulence and whimsicality of it tangible. Visual vibrations from a cosmic time. Jacobs has worked in recent years as the digital librarian of his own film performances that were legendary thanks to the surprising quality of the often one-off work that most people, even connoisseurs of the New York avant-garde, only know from standard works or second-hand. The digital versions not only make these films accessible, they keep them accessible. That is Cinema Regained.