Monteith McCollum

In the spirit of the Surrealist parlor game of chance Exquisite Corpse, each filmmaker makes a documentary short film based on imagery forwarded on by the previous filmmaker in the chain. The composite story forms a global independent filmmaking experience.

The life story of Milford Beeghly: Iowa farmer, early developer of hybrid seed corn, husband, father, grandfather.

Part science, part history, 2cent / 10coil is an exploration into the physical properties of a U.S. postage stamp and the anomalies it presents when subjected to the beam of an electron microscope. Integrated within are the philosophical musings and speeches of a man in his last weeks of life on a quest entitled “The Voyage of Understanding.”

Notes on Milk is a short variation of the 2007 feature documentary Milk in the Land: Ballad of an American Drink. Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum, whose Hybrid aired on POV in 2002, take a quirky and poetic look at some lesser-known aspects of America’s favorite drink: the industry’s spiritual underpinnings, politics and the struggle of independent farmers.

“SoundPrint” explores the marks left by sonic frequencies. Imagery from optical soundtracks and micro photography of records play against similar signals received by sand, water, and people. Sounds of the ocean and the Midshipman are the backdrop for a rich exploration of the subtleties of transcribed sound.

In a home filled with rare art objects from around the world, a disjunctured set of tales unravel around the travels of collector Don Boros. Dislocating fact from fiction and time from place, they are intermixed with the notable text On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music by 19th century physicist Hermann von Helmholtz.

Part science, part history, 2 Cent / 10 Coil is an exploration into the physical properties of a U.S. postage stamp and the anomalies it presents when subjected to the beam of an electron microscope. Integrated within, are the philosophical musings of a man in his last weeks of life on a quest entitled, "The Voyage of Understanding."

A man struggles to go chemical-free to ensure the health of his child.

”Milk in The Land” weaves together a quirky, alternative history of America’s most committed culinary choice. Food and culture are bound in mysterious ways. Milk is often assumed to be the perfect food, consumed since the beginning of time, delivered to us all as a pure gift of nature. This film amplifies and re-centres the whispered and marginalised, yet still deeply revealing ideas surrounding this iconic American product.