Giant Eagle, Four Stars
       
     
(Always) Next to Me
       
     
If the edges start to hurt
       
     
Driving Dinosaurs
       
     
Who Can Shoot a Firefly?
       
     
       
     
       
     
       
     
       
     
Giant Eagle, Four Stars
       
     
Giant Eagle, Four Stars

Super8 • 2021 • 3:59

In an abandoned shopping center outside of Cleveland, the story of the last remaining grocery store is told through recent google reviews.

Screenings:

Engauge | Seattle, USA | October 2021

WNDX | Winnipeg | October 2021

Drunken Film Festival Oakland | Oakland, USA | October 2021

Lyric Cinema | Fort Collins, USA | September 2021

ICDOCS | Iowa City, USA | April 2021

(Always) Next to Me
       
     
(Always) Next to Me

16mm • 2020 • 3:42

The film is a compilation of significant and insignificant occurrences- an experiment in co-existence. As we go through our very human experiences and emotions, there is an entire surrounding ecosystem that bears witness, supports, and exists alongside [often with total indifference to] that experience.

The plants leave their image on the film, but my state of mind at the various points over the 9 months of production is also reflected in the care to layout and exposure that I exert over the material. The one rule I made for myself was that I had to use all the plants that I gathered, so some sequences are long and careless, while others are concise and delicately constructed. Stressful moments are revealed by the haphazard placement of random plants across the film strip, the times of serenity can be spotted by recurring patterns, and carefully selected leaves. A reminder that when we are not well grounded, we cause more destruction to the life around us- take more than we need.

SCREENINGS:

ICDOCS | Iowa City, USA | 2021

Festival ECRÃ | Brazil | 2021

Maybe Blue | Boulder, USA | 2021

If the edges start to hurt
       
     
If the edges start to hurt

Super8, 16mm  • 2019

There is a big tree in Southwestern New Mexico where wild turkeys often roost. The tree is near a house, and at dusk everyone in that house gets very quiet hoping the turkeys won't get scared away and go somewhere else to sleep. As the birds fly up to the highest branches their wings flap, displacing the wind around them. The whole process can last an hour or more. This is a film about staying supple after heartbreak and what happens when it snows in the desert.

Completed with support from Light Cone Atelier 105 post-production residency.

Distribution: https://lightcone.org/en/film-12409-if-the-edges-start-to-hurt

SCREENINGS:

Lyric | Fort Collins, CO | 2021

On Fire in a Body of Water | Telluride Transfer Warehouse, CO USA | 2021

Winnipeg Underground Film Festival | Winnipeg, Canada | 2021

Sphere World Cinema Carnival | Online/Kolkata | 2021

Fracto | Berlin, Germany | October 2020

ICDOCS | Iowa City, USA | May 2020

Cosmic Rays | Chapel Hill, USA | March 2020

Driving Dinosaurs
       
     
Driving Dinosaurs

Super8 • 2019

An 89 year old marketing gimmick subliminally resurfaces on a lonely road in the American west.

~

SCREENINGS:

Mimesis Documentary Festival | Boulder, CO | 2021

On Fire in a Body of Water | Telluride, CO | 2021

Moviate | Harrisburg USA | November 2020

Pugnant Film Series | Athens Greece | February 2020

Sharjah Film Platform | Sharjah UAE | December 2019

CODEC/Festival Internacional de Cine Experimental y Vídeo | Mexico City, Mexico | November 2019

Eindhoven Film Festival | Netherlands | November 2019

ULTRAcinema | Mexico City, Mexico | November 2019

Transient Visions Film Festival | Johnson City, NY USA | October 2019

WNDX Film Festival | Winnipeg, Canada | October 2019

Save the Archives Film Festival | Milwaukee, WI, USA | September 2019

Unseen Film Festival | Denver, CO, USA | September 2019

Gimli Film Festival | Gimli, Canada | July 2019

Bex | West Virginia, USA | June 2019

Ann Arbor Film Festival | Michigan, USA | March 30th, 2019

Cosmic Rays Film Festival | North Carolina, USA | February 28th, 20019

Who Can Shoot a Firefly?
       
     
Who Can Shoot a Firefly?

Super8 • 2:25 • 2018

Light pollution, pesticides, and reduced habitat (people over-manicuring their lawns) are negatively impacting firefly populations around the country. Two summer nights in a row I cried myself to sleep thinking about having to live in a world without fireflies.

'Who Can Shoot a Firefly?' was at first conceived as a PSA to raise awareness about creating firefly habitat, but as I set out with my roll of 500T super8 film one dusky night I quickly discovered the ephemerality of both my subject matter and chosen medium.

The glow of the firefly lasts but a passing moment, the film is running and there is only a finite amount left. Edited in camera.

~

SCREENINGS

Moviate Underground Film Festival // Harrisburg, USA // May 25th, 2019

Artifact Small Format Film Festival // Calgary, Canada // March 8, 2019

       
     
The Life of a Woman, Directed by Women

Video • 2018

Commissioned for Women Writer's Week at RogerEbert.com, March 2018

Link: rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/the-life-of-a-woman-directed-by-women

"Editing this piece started out for me as a compelling intellectual exercise: is it possible to trace the overarching moments of a woman's life using only clips of films directed by women? What would that look like? It felt like a fun challenge, but the process of research, collecting clips and editing them together turned out to be a deeply moving experience. The sheer breadth of content to create this composite life was staggering, both in terms of time and space; this video contains clips from filmmakers on every continent over the span of 122 years.

I started a list with about 100 films and directors. I searched for moments from as many of these films as I could find and started editing, collecting more clips as I went based on gaps, curiosity, rabbit holes of research, or the feeling that something was missing in a certain section. Not everything made it into the final version, in fact more was left out than included. This is an exercise that could be re-examined daily, each time with different results, and this makes me incredibly optimistic. As a female filmmaker it is easy to get discouraged in the face of all the statistics, but putting this together, and seeing in condensed form the work of over a century women using film as a medium for expression, gives me much hope."

       
     
When a Seagull Breaks its Wing

Super8 • Hand Processed • 2018

What happens when a seagull breaks its wing?

SCREENING

Winnipeg Underground Film Festival | Winnipeg, Canada | June 2018

       
     
The Man in the Bushes

16mm, TRT: 5:46, USA • 2017

A film by Vasilios Papaioannu and Emma Piper-Burket
Featuring Adam Foldes

The distance from the Moon to Earth averages 238,855 miles. Both astronomical bodies are made up of the same elements in different proportions; one supports life, the other does not. A filmmaker follows a man as he searches for clues to understand the father he never knew. Armed with a stack of photographs, a street address and the knowledge that the man's father was an astronaut, the two explore their surrounding environs in order to unravel the mysteries of living on planet earth.

BACKGROUND

This film was shot in Syracuse, New York on 16mm film in May 2017. We also used selections from NASA's archival database, specifically the Apollo 10 mission, as well as material from the Apollo 16mm onboards (footage from all Apollo missions, Apollo-Saturn 202 through Apollo 17). For audio we used sounds that we recorded in Wendling, Oregon in July 2017 as well as NASA archival audio: the Highlight Reel of the Apollo 10 missions, Sounds of Saturn, and Audio from various launches and landings, recorded at the Kennedy Space Center. All NASA material was downloaded from the Internet Archive (archive.org).

SCREENINGS:

• Pugnant Film Series // Athens, Greece // February 2020
• Bolton Film Festival // Bolton, UK // September 2019
• Move Cine Arte, Museum of Image and Sound // São Paulo, Brazil // September 2019
• 31st Girona Film Festival ~Experimental Art~ // Girona, Spain // September 2019
• Braziers Mini Indi Film Festival ~OBSERVED ECOLOGIES~ // Oxfordshire, UK // May 2019
• NewFilmmakers NY, Anthology Film Archives // New York City, NY // May 2019
• Santa Cruz International Film Festival // Santa Cruz, Argentina // April 2019
• MicroActs & GUISE Collective curated program ~ANALOGUE FUTURES~ // London, UK // April 2019
• WAV Venice Audio-Visual Show // Venice, Italy // February, 2019
• Sharjah Film Platform // Sharjah, UAE // January, 2019
• UltracinemaMX // Mexico City, MX // November, 2018
• Drunken Film Festival Oakland // Oakland, USA // October 2018
• Counterpath - The Unseen Festival // Denver, USA // September, 2018
• Moviate Underground Film Festival // Harrisburg, USA // May, 2018
• London Greek Film Festival // London, UK // May 2018
• AXW, Anthology Film Archive // New York, USA // April 2018
• The West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival // Morgantown, USA // April 2018
• Lucca Film Festival // Italy // April 2018
• IBAFF Festival de Cine de Murcia // Spain // March 2018
• aDifferent Film Festival // Milwaukee, USA // February 2018

       
     
#bestdirectors

Video • 2min 58sec • 2017

Early last summer I discovered that most 'top filmmaker' lists only include male directors. For the next several months I couldn't stop imagining myself as one of them- one of the greats.

SCREENING:

WNDX Festival of Moving Image | Winnipeg, Canada | October 2017