The Rifleman

Riotsville, USA is an archival documentary about the U.S. military’s response to the political and racial injustices of the late 1960s: take a military base, build a mock inner-city set, cast soldiers to play rioters, burn the place down, and film it all.

Sierra Pettengill’s archival films explore the haunting of America’s present by its past. Her new short, The Rifleman (2020, 18 min), is an all-archival excavation of the links between gun culture, the National Rifle Association, and the U.S. Border Patrol across five decades.

An oral history of Artists Space, the legendary New York artists organization. Told through the voices of the artists, critics and curators who formed it, the film is narrated by voiceover culled from 30 hours of archival cassette tape interviews over a 45 year period. Artists such as Laurie Anderson, Mike Kelley, Hito Steyerl and David Wojnarowicz walk us through the decades. A formally-experimental and raucously-told chronology composed of rare archival documentation, The Business of Thought... is a reminder of the radical potential of the arts and the importance of collective, cultural spaces.

Using over 100 years of archival footage, director Sierra Pettengill explores the history of the largest Confederate monument, Georgia’s Stone Mountain.

Comprised entirely of archival footage taken during those pre-reality-television years, The Reagan Show looks at how Ronald Reagan redefined the look and feel of what it means to be the POTUS.