Tony Massil

When Áila encounters a young Indigenous woman, barefoot and crying in the rain on the side of a busy street, she soon discovers that this young woman, Rosie, has just escaped a violent assault at the hands of her boyfriend. Áila decides to bring Rosie home with her and over the course of the evening, the two navigate the aftermath of this traumatic event.

A high-school track star (Nick Stahl) watches without judgment as his two best friends (Summer Phoenix, Aaron Paul) abuse heroin.

A long-time resident of the farm, the filmmaker sets up a camera to observe this community living physically and ideologically on the margins of consumer society. In this multigenerational, interdependent community, each individual contributes in their own way to growing or raising almost all their food and, more broadly, to creating their own shared space and way of life. They seek to live in harmony with plants and animals, adopting an approach based on respect and recognition for their ecosystem. Images and sound express this vision, often placing humans in relation to their environment. The flexible frame also highlights manual labour with its sometimes delicate, sometimes laborious gestures. This visually stunning work was filmed over two years and follows the seasons. It’s punctuated by cycles—from sowing to harvesting and from birth to slaughter—developing an inspiring reflection on society, nature, and life through ellipsis and fluidity.

Frank Furko, an 80-year-old eccentric in the Pittsburgh suburbs, takes stock of his life and tries to reconcile his forty years working on the family farm with his domineering father, the end of his 20 year marriage, and his role as a celebrity derived from Pudgie Wudgie, his 20-pound performing house-cat. Supported by Frank's twenty years of VHS video archives, the film explores memory, loss, friendship and mortality.