Q&A with filmmakers and members of Meerkat Media Collective
Direct Response is a collection of short films by members of the Meerkat Media Collective showcasing work made in response to political, environmental and social injustice.
ALBATROSS SOUP
Directed by Winnie Cheung
A delightfully fluid animation that lyrically complements a chorus of voices attempting to investigate a puzzling suicide: A man gets off a boat. He walks into a restaurant and orders albatross soup. He takes one sip... pulls out a gun, and shoots himself to death. So...why did he kill himself?
CONSENSUS
Directed by Meerkat Media Collective
A look into the "how" of the Occupy Wall Street movement: the consensus process.
DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE
Directed by Travis Wood
What happens if you call the Department of Justice to report an incident of violence? Who picks up the phone? DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE, from filmmakers Travis Wood and Chloe Gbai, fictionalizes that premise with a comment on the state of justice and accountability regarding police violence in America, in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
HER OWN TIME
Directed by Sarah Ema Friedland
HER OWN TIME reclaims the representation of survivors of domestic violence from the sensational and disempowering imagery they are often portrayed by. Through playful and painful animations, the artist liberates stock photos of women cowering in corners with their faces in their hands, from the confines of the magazines and newspapers they are trapped in. Placing them in new landscapes that reshape their realities.
IN ACCORDANCE WITH
Directed by Alessandra Lacorraza and Sarah Ema Friedland
This speculative short film imagines a world in which the territory of the body and the territory of this nation are collapsed into one space. At a border check point, pregnant people are forced to endure invasive and emotionally abusive measures in order to get an abortion. Ultimately, the film explores whether this fictional world is really that different from the one we are currently living in.
INTO THE STREETS
Directed by Meerkat Media Collective
Over 400,000 people took to the streets of Manhattan as a unified front against climate justice inaction. Diverse perspectives converge as a popular movement unfolds.
THE MARKET
Directed by Claudia Zamora Valencia
In a distant future where a catastrophe poisoned all soil and corporations produce tasteless food in labs, a mysterious Archive opens the door to a sumptuous past.
THE NEW CHE OF HAVANA
Directed by Alex Mallis and Bryan Chang
A Cuban skateboarder and artist must reconcile looming changes and a nascent free-market economy with his desire to continue operating his tattoo shop - currently illegal in Havana.
THE WHELMING SEA
Directed by Sean Hanley
Three animal lives entangle at the edge of the sea. Horseshoe crabs spawn on eroded urban beaches, migrating shorebirds seek sustenance at a midpoint, and humans attempt to make a difference in this age of mass extinction.