Todd Chandler

Movies

I Didn't See You There
Editor
As a visibly disabled person, filmmaker Reid Davenport is often either the subject of an unwanted gaze — gawked at by strangers — or paradoxically rendered invisible, ignored or dismissed by society. The arrival of a circus tent just outside his apartment prompts him to consider the history and legacy of the freak show, in which individuals who were deemed atypical were put on display for the amusement and shock of a paying public. Contemplating how this relates to his own filmmaking practice, which explicitly foregrounds disability, Davenport sets out to make a film about how he sees the world from his wheelchair without having to be seen himself.
Bulletproof
Director
"Bulletproof" observes the age-old rituals that take place daily in American schools: homecoming parades, basketball practice, morning announcements, and math class. Unfolding alongside these scenes are an array of newer traditions: lockdown drills, teacher firearm trainings, metal detector inspections, and school safety trade shows. This documentary weaves together these moments in a cinematic meditation on fear, violence, and the meaning of safety, bringing viewers into intimate proximity with the people self-tasked with protecting the nation's children while generating revenue along the way, as well as with those most deeply impacted by these heightened security measures: students and teachers.
In the Absence
Editor
When the MV Sewol ferry sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from national authorities.
A Debtors' Prison
Editor
In St. Louis County, the home of police-shooting victim Michael Brown, a practice with a long history has become systematic: the operation of modern-day debtors’ prisons. A Debtors' Prison follows two plaintiffs in an unfolding court case, Samantha Jenkins and Meredith Walker, as they describe the matrix of controls that subjected them to incarceration for being poor.
A Debtors' Prison
Director
In St. Louis County, the home of police-shooting victim Michael Brown, a practice with a long history has become systematic: the operation of modern-day debtors’ prisons. A Debtors' Prison follows two plaintiffs in an unfolding court case, Samantha Jenkins and Meredith Walker, as they describe the matrix of controls that subjected them to incarceration for being poor.
National Disintegrations
Editor
In his latest film, Braden King ponders the Geneva Freeport, a warehouse complex in Switzerland that is said to house over 1 million works of art. A high-security tax haven for international dealers and collectors, the Freeport's exact contents remain a mystery to the general public. As people crossing borders are more to more and greater scrutiny, NATIONAL DISINTEGRATIONS examines what it means to have untold amounts of wealth and property flow freely through this extralegal space.
Homeland: The Story of the Lark
Editor
A distilled, up-to-the-minute portrait of our agitated nation, its politics, its economics, its delusions and its dreams. Laurie Anderson's tone is less outraged than elegiac, mourning for lives lost, ideals misplaced. The music is dramatically stripped down to a handful of players, centered around Anderson's haunting violin and voice, frequent Bill Frisell band-mate Eyvind Kang's viola and Peter Scherer's keyboards.
The Road Becomes What You Leave
Editor
The Road Becomes What You Leave is a meditative documentary following the band Magnolia Electric Co. as they travel across the prairies of Canada.
The Road Becomes What You Leave
Director
The Road Becomes What You Leave is a meditative documentary following the band Magnolia Electric Co. as they travel across the prairies of Canada.
The Castle
Editor
Formerly incarcerated people reassemble their lives at The Castle, a singular housing facility and a supportive home base created by The Fortune Society.