THE AFTER PARTY (director)
In pre-production.
For one evening, we all become clowns. A long standing performance troupe gathers to celebrate the passing of their beloved circus. Clowns all, they unmask each other, and themselves, as they eat and drink, sing and dance into the night. At dawn, they depart. No longer the clowns they once were, they are new and unknown selves, stepping cautiously into a new day.
A MAN FULL OF DAYS (director, official trailer)
In a search for meaning and authenticity, a man walks in a semi-dream state to dispense with his once cogent view of the world. He dons a lighted wig and a leather suit as he pursues and is pursued by elusive angels, freaks and wise strangers in a post-biblical world. "He speaks by dreams, and visions come in the night..." JOB 33:15
QUEEN (director, operatic short)
In this reversal of Henry Purcell’s 17th century aria, “Dido’s Lament,” Queen Dido kills Aeneas by biting him to death, instead of killing herself, after finding inspiration in the post-coital cannibalism of praying mantises.
SALT IN THE AIR (director, 2013)
A portrait of rural melancholia, SALT IN THE AIR exhumes the spirit of salt from a 3,500-year-old salt mine in a foggy and hardscrabble Carpathian Mountain village.
LYSHEHA
A short film about the great poet, Oleh Lysheha.
Devil's Rib (director, short)
This is a short film showing Fedir Shrof, an old man and old salt miner who vigorously working his land. It's an excerpt from my film, Salt in the Air. I was privileged to meet Fedir and share a few days with him in the Carpathian Mountain village of Solotvyno. The origin and the meaning of his nick name remain an unsaid mystery. (2011)
MUKUNTUWEAP (director, experimental doc)
An experimental documentary created during an artist residency at Zion National Park in Utah (2012). While staying alone in a sandstone cabin for a month, I attempted here to capture gentle disturbances that I witnessed in the park.
THE HUMAN TOWER (executive producer, 2012)
Three countries. One passion. Three hundred bodies climbing, reaching the sky to build a human tower — all for a touch of glory. In Mumbai, India, Sandeep, a coach with high dreams and a debilitating case of malaria leads his team of men to break the record and build India’s biggest human tower at the one-day Dahi Handi Festival.
Pushing the Elephant (producer, 2011)
In the late 1990s, Rose Mapendo was imprisoned with her family during violence that engulfed the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her harrowing experience included the nighttime arrest of her entire family by government agents, the execution of her husband, the birth of their twin sons in prison, and grim negotiations with prison guards to save the lives of her children. She emerged from the harrowing experience advocating forgiveness and reconciliation.
AN ENCOUNTER WITH SIMONE WEIL (producer, 2010)
An Encounter with Simone Weil tells the story of French philosopher, activist, and mystic, Simone Weil (1909-1943) -- a woman Albert Camus described as "the only great spirit of our time." On her quest to understand Simone Weil, filmmaker Julia Haslett confronts profound questions of moral responsibility both within her own family and the larger world. From the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War to anti-war protests in Washington DC, from intimate exchanges between the filmmaker and her older brother, who struggles with mental illness, to captivating interviews with people who knew Simone Weil, the film takes us on an unforgettable journey into the heart of what it means to be a compassionate human being.
Election Day (consulting producer, 2007)
Election Daycombines 11 stories — shot simultaneously on November 2, 2004, from dawn until long past midnight — into one. Factory workers, ex-felons, harried moms, Native American activists and diligent poll watchers, from South Dakota to Florida, take the process of democracy into their own hands.
Arctic Son (development consultant, 2007)
In the tiny village of Old Crow, 80 miles north of the Arctic Circle, a father and his son are reunited after almost 25 years apart. They share a name and a bloodline, but the worlds they know and the lifestyles they lead are as different as their respective hometown climates. Stanley Njootli Sr. is a hunter, a man of the land steeped in native traditions. Stanley Jr., who has been raised by his mother in Washington State, immerses himself in hip-hop music and video games, and is drifting deeper into drugs and alcohol. After a lifetime apart, the two meet again in the raw, quiet beauty of the Canadian Yukon.
Misadventure of 95 (director, short)
Early one morning, in a bar, a man confronts his friend for sleeping with his girlfriend. They argue until she suddenly arrives and steals the first man's wallet. (2005)
Artistic