to play films click on images or titles:
600 Moons
8min, 16mm, 2021
If we live long enough, we will have seen six-hundred moons at fifty years of life on earth. 600 Moons is a wordless experimental film that wonders about the fluidity of time, the fragility of our existence and what happens when we die. Shot in Ontario and Montana on 16mm, the film was hand processed with photo-chemicals and eco-processing techniques using oregano, mint, Arrowleaf balsamroot and unnamed weeds as developer.
Looking at Neon Signs
3m, super 8, 2015
a super 8 experiment in gazing at neon signs during magic hour.
Commissioned by Echo Park Film center, 2015, “All Night Salon” fundraiser. All works were created on super8.
Bard in the Backcountry
56m, HD, 2015
BARD IN THE BACKCOUNTRY is the story of Shakespeare in Montana. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at a summer with the professional, regional touring company, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks – from first read through to final performance. Through the journey of the summer tour, the story reveals the mutual impact the tour has on the lives of these young actors and the people who put in the effort to bring the show to town. This film premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and is currently in national release through American Public Television.
link to Bard in the Backcountry, entire film here.
Transmutations
5min, HD Video, 2013
Transmutations is a five minute video created with high resolution photographs of encaustic paintings that are then morphed together in post to create a living stardust sensation. This video was designed as part of the installation Black (W)hole, created by the Einstein Collective. In the installation, this video of morphing images plays in a continuous loop on the back wall of the space, or all four walls, as the space allows, creating an immersive experience. Viewers move toward a central animation of a black hole projected onto the floor. The encaustic paintings, by artist Sara Mast, reference Einstein’s General Relativity equations scrawled in chalk on his blackboard, the solutions of which predicted the existence of black holes.
Mating for Life
48m, HD, Animation, 16mm, super 8, 2012
Mating for Life is part nature film, part first person essay that chronicles my journey to witness the annual spring migration of half a million sandhill cranes to the Platte River in central Nebraska. Using animation and live action super 8, 16mm and HD video footage, I weave together my own reasons for migrating to see the birds, a primary one being that sandhill cranes mate for life. The natural history of the sandhill crane provides the central themes of the film which are my own lack of a life long pair-bond, aging, and wondering how a person finds meaning in a life lived flying solo.
111º Longitude
8.5 m, digital video, super 8, 2009
111º LONGITUDE is a short experimental documentary collaboration with Arizona based filmmaker, Yuri Makino. The film is structured like a series of letters or voice mail exchanges, rambling and searching, using text on screen, visuals and voice. We found ourselves at similar places in our lives, as single women, both living along the 111th meridian—wondering about youthful expectations, commitment, and family. Pastoral domestic images both real and imagined become interrogations about creating a home, especially as it relates to women living in the modern world.
Hay Daze
1.5 m, super 8, 2007
HAY DAZE is a micro short film that visually documents the “What the Hay?” celebration near Hobson, Montana. Each autumn hay growers celebrate cutting season by creating hay bale sculptures. These are displayed predominately in the fields and a driving tour is designed for viewing the year’s creations. HAY DAZE features super 8 footage of notable creations with a sparse soundtrack that uses naturalistic sounds.
High Plains Winter
9m 49s, super 8 & 16mm, 2006
HIGH PLAINS WINTER is a film about the winter landscape and how it affects the human spirit on the high plains of Montana. The American/Scandinavian sport ski joring, which involves a horse & rider pulling a skier, is the centerpiece of this visual study of winter on the high plains. Alongside the sport imagery are majestic, winter landscapes and signs of domestic life: horses, dogs and people. These elements weave together to explore the nature of human life in this environment, the mythologies and the realities. This film premiered at Sundance Film Festival and was screened as part of the Documentary Fortnight at the Museum of Modern Art.
A Season on the Move
12 m, super8. 2004
A SEASON ON THE MOVE is a meditation on two harvests: wheat cutting and sheep shearing. The landscape plays a key role, along with the combines, shearing combs, and weather patterns. The film cycles through the seasons and presents these processes as mythological oddities and realistic modern agricultural practices in the American rural west, both pastoral and disturbing. This film premiered at Slamdance Film Festival.
O! Sprinklers
7 m, digital video, 2002
O! SPRINKLERS is a visual probe of a variety of sprinklers. The intention was to look closely at the seemingly mundane concept of sprinklers and reinterpret them as possible residual artifacts of human life. Sprinklers themselves conjure different things for different people: wide open space, neighborhoods, or the season they bring to mind. We were interested in how the commonality of memory and experience can transform everyday objects into cultural phenomena. This film was a collaboration between Cindy Stillwell and Bill Neff. This film premiered at Slamdance Film Festival.
The First Story
11 m, super8, 2000
THE FIRST STORY is a short film that explores overland power in the western landscape: the big rigs on I 90 and the freight trains crossing Wyoming. The images were collected on super 8 throughout Wyoming and Montana over the course of two years. They were compiled under the guiding principle of applying the improvisational techniques of making music to making a film. This film premiered at Slamdance Film Festival.