Matthew Buckingham

Past and present life in the anarchistic "free city" of Christiania, in Copenhagen, Denmark. In Sandra of the Tuliphouse or How to Live in Free State, Christiania is approached at face-value, as a self-described laboratory of freedom, an environment that provides an almost unparalleled opportunity to unravel a very particular history of markedly contrasting power relations and vivid social forces. Borrowing from the usually dispirit practices of cultural geography and fictional narrative the project is constructed as a visual, spatial, and aural investigation of the site. The situation at Christiania in 2001 is compared with its distant past as a military base, its more recent utopian regeneration, and its possible future.

Short film made out of found footage.

Less than twenty tattered business receipts are the only source of information on the life of Amos Fortune: in 1769, at the age of 59, Fortune bought his freedom from slavery, moved to New Hampshire from Boston, and opened a leather tanning business. Little else is known about this man, who becomes the absent center of the film "Amos Fortune Road." A roadside historical marker inscribed with his name provokes the curiosity of two fictional characters: a teacher, Sharon, and her student, Mary-anne. The film interweaves their personal lives and seemingly endless drives along rural New Hampshire roads with their investigation of Fortune’s identity. When Sharon discovers that most of the information they have gathered originated in two fictionalized biographies, one for children and one for adults, she also realizes that the 200-year-old roads they have been traveling are the same roads Amos Fortune used every day—a quotidian link to a suppressed historical subject.

"What becomes a legend most? Perhaps an inventive film, with a bit of whimsy, to explore the complexities of history and its many layers of rewriting and mythology. Buckingham uses a variety of wonderful devices to reopen the case of the 16th president, presenting a series of statements in a true/false format. This film proves that the most established "facts" can offer the most fertile ground for new questions." – D. L., Onion City Film Festival program notes.