Emily Hubley

"Everybody Rides the Carousel" invites the viewer along on eight "rides" through the different stages of life. Based on the work by Erik Erikson, one of the most influential psychoanalytic theorists of this century, the film explores the inner feelings and conflicted emotions experienced during each stage of personality development. With distinctive and poetic animation, John and Faith Hubley visualize the conflicts, joys, problems and delights we all experience on the carousel of life.

The agony and beauty of the creative process are explored in this reflective work, first inspired by a piano solo by Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, which reminds us that the act of creation can feel like “cracking the code in another dimension.”

Hubley created this short while at work on her first feature, The Toe Tactic, as a musical exploration of poetry featured in the film. Each frame was drawn on a single sheet of paper using watercolor pencil and ink, and the animation is accompanied by Yo La Tengo’s meditative score.

In this early work and collaboration between sisters Emily and Georgia, a figure journeys through a bewildering, menacing world. The film was created using a plethora of materials, including color-changing children’s markers and spray paint, and many of the specialized supplies, like cels, cel paint, and grease pencils, were leftovers from their parents’ famed Hubley Studios.

With humor, chutzpah and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold set out in search of the truth about polyvinyl chloride (PVC), America's most popular plastic. From Long Island to Louisiana to Italy, they unearth the facts about PVC and its effects on human health and the environment.

Earth is visited by a race of aliens, who issue an ultimatum: either peace or complete destruction.

Witch Madness depicts a neglected chapter of human history: Europe’s three centuries of fanatical witchhunts, which resulted in the genocide of perhaps as many as two million women. But ultimately, the film communicates a message of love and hope.

Using Baseball as a metaphor, this film explores the world of William Blake.

On the one hand, a healthy child who has enough to eat. On the other hand, a poor, undernourished kid. On the one hand, a quarter of the blue planet's children. On the other hand, the remaining three quarters.

Mona is nearly overwhelmed by grief and depression. After her father's death, she's cut herself off: leaving teaching - she now temps as an office assistant, ignoring her mother's calls, talking to herself in mirrors, and rejecting any offered intimacy. She's watched over by comic extraterrestrial beings whom we see as cartoon squiggles. They ensure that random acts bring her connections - with a neighbor boy, his mother, and his surreptitious piano teacher (the lad wants to surprise his mom). She also meets an elevator operator in the building where she temps for Ms. Hadaway, a widow with perfect diction. Can Mona take a few steps on the road to expressing emotion?

Inspired by the writings of the 13th century Indian poet Kabir, "Upside Down" shocks the audience from its torpor. Lost in a maze of contradictions, its characters search for a way out... Death is befriended and the eternal yearning for harmony, beauty and balance are realized in the final sequence.

This animated psychedelic short portrays the stream-of-consciousness adventures of a young woman, including an encounter with her dead father, her mother's struggle with cancer, and open-heart surgery at the hands of the doctor who birthed her (the "Delivery Man" of the title).

A grandmother discusses past and present attitudes toward menstruation.

The history of the Americas is considered from an Indigenous perspective, featuring the poetry of the Aztec emperor Nezahualcotl, Jose Chocan, and Gabriela Mistral.

Motian In Motion is a documentary film about iconic jazz drummer Paul Motian, with rare footage of Paul playing and recording at the world renowned Village Vanguard, Birdland and other venues.

A person finds a magical fish, wishes for "it all" and learns a lesson about when enough is enough.

A film about the many faces of time as it flows from the future to the past, through cyclic, biological, curved and paradoxical time.

WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE is a witty and provocative documentary about kids and food politics. Filmed over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old African-American city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. They formulate sophisticated and compassionate opinions about urban sustainability, and by doing so inspire hope and active engagement in others.

A young woman's diary depicts her layered, poetic, inner efforts to deal with the world and overcome self-doubt.

The 25th and final film completed by Hubley, is a lyrical visual poem to environmentalism and to the Inuits' attachment to the land, and their ability to adapt to the natural world.

A stop-motion film, written, animated, & directed by Dan Blank.

A fearless sea captain, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, sails a ship through loopholes in international law, providing abortions on the high seas, and leaving in her wake a network of emboldened activists who trust women to handle abortion on their own terms.

Artist/filmmaker Faith Hubley drew a self-portrait in her journal every day for the last decades of her life. Years later, her daughter revisits specific memories and dreams, and considers a relationship altered by death.

A wryly ironic, deadpan voice-over belies the anxieties, fears and obsessions in the everyday life of a misunderstood adolescent; whose most intimate relationship is with her diary. A spare graphic style, an animation variant on New Wave / Punk, is powerfully effective in conveying unarticulated emotions. Felt tip on paper, backlit.