Through the Looking Glass

Long before New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani launched his campaign to clean up the city, Times Square was the stage for a slew of religious zealots and fanatics, all preaching their brand of fire and brimstone to anyone who would listen. Filmed between 1993 and 1998, Richard Sandler's documentary gives viewers a glimpse into the not-so-distant past, when 42nd Street was the shared pulpit of the most colorful assortment of ministry imaginable.

A portrait and personal video diary of life in Los Angeles from February 2011 through the end of July 2011. The March 11th Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster plays a role in the film, as concerns of nuclear drift to the US were then a staple of the news cycle.

SWAY is a free-form documentary edited from fourteen years of daily subway video shooting. It is filled with music and poignant New York City moments.

Satish Kumar, nuclear disarmament advocate and pacifist speaks at length in England. Mini-DV and Super-8.

BRAVE NEW YORK is a free-form documentary that loosely chronicles the last twelve years of intense change in the East Village "hood." From the reopening of a newly curfewed Tompkins Square Park and Wigstock in '92 to the destruction of the cherished Loisaida Community Gardens, beyond the yuppie invasions of the "dot com" years to the present era, indelibly stamped with post 9/11 grief, this durable, lusty neighborhood survives in spite of a real estate gold rush that has excluded all but the well-to-do. The movie's main voices are those of the artists and street people whose wisdom and commentaries upon the dominant culture give us pause amidst the speedy approach of a "Brave New World." This Overview was taken from Fandor, where this film is available. 2004.

outtakes from the gods of times square

Richard Sandler's gritty city symphony takes stock of New York's Lower East Side with a decade's worth of moments and encounters that would otherwise be lost to history.

Everybody is Hurting is a documentary shot during 9/11/2001 and the days immediately afterward; The centerpiece of the documentary is a soul-searching and muscular debate that raged in Union Square Park in the nights following.

"This silent film is more of an assembly, than an edit with a point of view. The footage is from my final rolls of the venerable Kodak Super-8 film stocks, Plus-x and Kodachrome. Plus-X was kodak's first film, and it's longest in continuous production [...] Plus-X movie film will be missed as much as the magnificent Kodachrome [...] footage was shot in october and november of 2010 for my film "aka martha's vineyard."

a short film shot around Central Park set to John Cage