To Become Ghosts

An essay film that compares various acts of resistance and revolutionary struggle from the 1920s to the present day. An alternative cartography of Manhattan reminiscent of Sebald’s novels.

As the Olympian gods struggle to make sense of the end of their empire, a rebellion is rising from the valley below. With a script written in dactylic hexameter and performed by poets, the film examines how the forces of power often fail to recognize the frailty of their rule, while the oppressed and the organized find their capacity to strike need not wait for the confluence of an imagined perfect storm.

A visual treatment of John Berger's classic 1967 essay, "The Nature of Mass Demonstrations," this film explores how demonstrations are always rehearsals for political revolution. At a time when millions are in the streets, this re-interrogation of the notion of protest, political violence, and rebellion is a necessary addition to our political imaginary.

This documentary follows three activists to examine how HIV/AIDS plays out in the everyday lives of New Yorkers today and how community groups work to remake home as a space of caretaking, housing, and family. The film was originally featured in the Museum of the City of New York's 2017 exhibition, AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism, which explored how artists and activists navigated the political stakes of domestic life in the face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, from the early 1980s to the present.

During the Second World War, thousands of Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi oppression were imprisoned in the United Kingdom and sent to work in prison camps in Canada. Using a large archive of never-released audio interviews, Those Who Heard & Those Who Saw tells the story of these prisoners and considers how their experiences connect to those of contemporary refugees.