Kelly Sears

The Drift

Kelly Sears

Anthony McCann

A mysterious disappearance on a late 1960s space journey entrances the nation. The ensuing search for the lost astronauts radically changes the nature of the country. This film reexamines the nature of our country's expansionist doctrines and the desire to push too far, too fast.

Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise

Kelly Sears

Once it started it could not end otherwise recounts terrifying and strange happenings that descend on a 1970s high school.

Voice on the Line

Kelly Sears

Figures from archival films from the 1950s are recast in a large-scale secret operation that veers bizarrely off course. The film reflects on current and troubled relationships between the areas of national security, civil liberties and telephone companies. Voice on the Line explores how technology can be used to shape our fears, desires and how we feel connected.

In the Vicinity

Kelly Sears

In the Vicinity incorporates the spectrum of official, covert, occult and limitless reconnaissance protocols in an instructional guide.

High in the Grass

Kelly Sears

The Rancher

Kelly Sears

A series of terrible dreams unhinge a man in power. The Rancher is a parafictional newsreel film featuring an anonymous president during wartime. The reworked footage, sampled from newsreels about Lyndon Baines Johnson, presents a more fraught portrait of the daily life of this archetypical president. As he escalates military involvement, the president is plagued by terrible dreams that result in the unraveling of public opinion about the war. The narrative of The Rancher largely parallels LBJ’s administration as well as ones from more recent history.

Applied Pressure

Kelly Sears

Sequential images sourced from dozens of massage books are activated to reflect on recent public conversation from this past year surrounding bodies, massage, and assault. Ease the pain from past physical and mental distress. The body remembers. Aches may linger. Lay prone, breathe deeply, release tension.

Tropical Depression

Kelly Sears

Images from recent hurricanes and the 1931 Miss Universe Contest are collaged into an animated séance that channels Galveston's haunted history

Jean

Kelly Sears

The rise and fall of Jean Seberg, a great actress unjustly cast away. JEAN is part of Mike Plante's Lunchfilm series of commissioned shorts (made for the cost of a lunch between Plante and filmmaker Kelly Sears).

Jupiter Elicious

Kelly Sears

A haunted meteorologist dreams of storms that are both closer and further away than he thought. His unshakable bravado is undone through fast winds and high pressure systems and a sense of duty.

The Body Besieged

Kelly Sears

Animated instructional photographs from yoga and workout books reveal bewitched and frenzied bodies and maneuvers. Exercising women move through a possessed psychic space that distorts and mirrors some of our daily routines. Their bodies point to haunted forces may lay behind a fevered sense of wellness.

Pattern for Survival

Kelly Sears

A key ingredient in any survival situation is the mental attitude of the individuals involved.

He Hates to be Second

Kelly Sears

He Hates to be Second uses excavated fragments from a 1963 article about Robert Kennedy and images and advertisements from similar 1963 publications. The majority of the article is blacked out to highlight key phrases that speak to aggressive gestures that marked this era as a result of building tensions of the Cold War. The text functions as an antithesis to the practice of blacked out government documents that hide sensitive information. This piece focuses on revealing, rather than suppressing, illuminating moments from our past.

After Fall

Kelly Sears

A version of how the following year can unfold, put into motion before the confirmation vote occurs.