Language: English

  • Law Is in the Seed, The

    “The Law Is in the Seed” is a video of a poem by the same name written by Alex Jacobs, a Mohawk Indian poet from Akwesasne (New York State). The poem is about the Native American concept of democracy as contained in the Great Law, an oral document which originated with Deganawida, the Huron co-founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Great Law was the model for the United States Constitution. As Jacobs begins to recite the poem on camera, the video mixes to the faces of Mohawk children and women, their lips moving in and out of sync with Jacobs’…

  • Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists

    What happens when a dedicated husband and father quits his job, adopts the persona of a Western-Movie Singing Cowboy, takes on the entire art establishment (including Christo and Andy Warhol), and refuses to accept money for his art ? Meet Gerry Gaxiola, AKA The Maestro, an ex-wage slave who gave up everything to make art for art’s sake. The Maestro’s story could inspire a whole new generation of Van Goghs. With: The Maestro Rides Again! (30 min. 2005)

  • Marc & Ann

    An enchanting portrait of Marc and Ann Savoy, Cajun musicians who are dedicated to the preservation and continuance of Cajun culture. Marc is an irreverent storyteller and accordion maker; his wife Ann is the mother of four, and author of the book “Cajun Music: Reflection of a People.”

  • FREE JOAN LITTLE

    Free Joan Little tells the story of the 1975 groundbreaking case of Joan Little (pronounced Jo-Ann), who was one of the first women in U.S history to be acquitted for using deadly force to resist sexual assault. Joan was a Black incarcerated woman in North Carolina who killed her white prison guard who was trying to rape her. Little’s murder trial became an international cause célèbre, uniting fractured social movements—Civil Rights activists, feminists, Black Power advocates, and death penalty opponents—in an unprecedented intersectional coalition that challenged systemic racism and sexism in the criminal justice system.

  • It’s Not Brakhage

    It’s Not Brakhage is a feature-length parafiction film, structured around an unnamed narrator’s investigation of a mysterious film reel, believed to be a lost work by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage. Shrouded in speculation and actively contested, the film reel is believed to be the sole remaining artifact from a cancelled 1959 film festival, co-organized by Brakhage and military-industrial giant DuPont chemical. The story follows the narrator’s forensic deconstruction of the film reel’s history, sifting through a patchwork of theories and speculations that have arisen since its discovery, and connecting the artifact to DuPont’s wider networks of military-industrial research and artistic…

  • Salvage Archives

    Salvage Archives continues Rufelds’ research into cultural and subcultural expressions of late capitalist alienation, and the forms of collective storytelling that take shape under the shadows of unjust material systems. Told in a hybrid narrative style, mixing elements of essay film, social realism, and neo-noir, Salvage Archives oscillates between two narrative threads, counterposing a lonely online conspiracy theorist and a disembodied historian of agriculture. The two figures recount their stories in alternating chapters, perversely mirroring each other as they wade into the knotted abstractions of capitalist productive systems, logistics networks, patterns of accumulation, and systemic waste. As both narrators’ grandiose…

  • Private Flowers

    In 1832, a Canadian Infantryman was hanged for making love with another man. The victim’s rank was Private, and his name was Flowers. Commissioned by Toronto History Museums’ Artist Mentorship Showcase: Pride with Mentor Ashley Mckenzie-Barnes with additional support from the open space residency programme at the National Ballet, TD Bank, Pride Toronto and the Ontario Arts Council. Created as part of Awakening with Toronto History Museums Private Flowers is part of a series of art projects by Black, Indigenous and artists of colour, operating under the principles of anti-oppression, anti-colonialism and anti-racism and is part of the City’s efforts…

  • The Thought That Counts

    The film follows Davis, grappling with profound grief and illness while struggling with memories of his late mother. His devoted husband attempts to uplift him with a heartfelt gift: a home to raise butterflies. As they navigate unexpected challenges in nurturing the delicate creatures (the cocoons already hatched), Davis confronts his past and finds solace in the transformative power of memories and the healing journey of letting go.

  • Reruns of the Glow and Noise

    A pail of soil, spread on plastic, becoming grains of light.

  • The Years

    THE YEARS is a poetry film exploring life stages through various ages as experienced by different actors in a non-chronological order and time frame. Historical Super 8mm film footage mixes with digital recordings as the poem is voiced by the filmmaker/author. Questions of impermanence and the instability of time frame the histories indicated by the filmed images gathered by the artist over years of recorded witnessing.