Amos Poe, the Israeli-American director and screenwriter credited with chronicling Downtown New York’s punk movement, died on Thursday at age 76 after a battle with an aggressive cancer, his wife and daughter said on social media.
Poe, who was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 2022, underwent intensive chemotherapy before moving to home hospice care.
“Amos took his last breath today at 3:33 p.m., surrounded by loved ones,” said Claudia Summers, his wife, on Instagram. A GoFundMe campaign was launched to help offset his medical costs, drawing support from the filmmaking community.
Emily Poe, his daughter, wrote on Facebook: “We said goodbye today to Amos Poe and the world will never be the same.”
Janus Films paid tribute on X/Twitter, posting a black-and-white portrait of Poe in a leather jacket with the caption: “Farewell Amos, Prince of New York.”
Leading cultural figure, helped shape punk
Born in Tel Aviv in 1949, Poe was a leading figure in the so-called No Wave cinema of experimental, low-budget filmmaking in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which has greatly influenced today’s world of independent filmmaking.
Poe was a fixture in New York’s Downtown cultural scene, helping shape the Bowery’s punk explosion and documenting it on film. His seminal work, The Blank Generation, along with The Foreigner and Subway Riders, cemented his reputation.
Alongside contemporaries such as Jim Jarmusch, Abel Ferrara, and Vivienne Dick, Poe became a central figure in the No Wave scene.
In comments to Reuters in 2011, Poe talked about the emergence of No Wave cinema.
“Our whole aesthetic, or the way we approached it, was that you didn’t necessarily have to have the professionalism or the understanding of making films. You had to have the inspiration and the will to put yourself completely into it.”
In a 2020 profile titled, “His Film Is a Punk Classic, but the Credits Now Roll Without Him,” The New York Times said Poe lost control of his music documentary after a dispute with Czech American composer and guitarist Ivan Kral.
Poe turned to directing his own features, starting with Unmade Beds, a DIY project starring friends Duncan Hannah, Eric Mitchell, and Debbie Harry.
Losing several groundbreaking films
Regarding the dispute with Kral, The New York Times reported that Poe lost ownership of several of his films to the composer following a 2012 lawsuit over licensing profits.
After the suit, Kral gave himself the title of “director” in the films, labeling Poe as the co-editor. Amos never recovered the rights to his works.
'My stomach and intestines are a colossal mess'
In 2024, Poe posted from Greece: “My stomach and intestines are a colossal mess. What I needed was to get back to work – but as anyone who’s been in intense, unrelenting pain will tell you, it’s tiring as hell. So... a month in the Mediterranean seemed the right prescription... and here we are.”
Tributes poured in from across the industry. US indie director Jim Jarmusch, who called Poe a key influence, and Emmy-winning actor Michael Imperioli, who worked with Poe on Joey Breaker, shared condolences on social media.