Image still from Bulletproof by Todd Chandler.
Bulletproof
Todd Chandler is a filmmaker, interdisciplinary artist, and educator who creates expressionistic films about journeys and issue-driven documentaries.
Artist BioWhat does it mean to be safe in school in the United States? Safe from what, and from whom? Bulletproof poses and complicates these questions through a provocative exploration of fear and American violence.
Bulletproof explores the complexities of violence in schools by looking at the strategies employed to prevent it. The film observes the longstanding rituals that take place in and around American schools: homecoming parades, basketball practice, morning announcements, and math class. Unfolding alongside these scenes are a collection of newer traditions: lockdown drills, teacher firearms training, metal detector screenings, and school safety trade shows. Bulletproof asks what these rituals reflect back at us, looking beyond immediate causes and responses to mass shootings in a cinematic meditation on the array of forces that shape the culture of violence in the United States.
Todd Chandler
Brooklyn, NY
Todd Chandler is a filmmaker, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. Over the past ten years he has created expressionistic films about journeys and issue-driven documentaries. His first feature film, Flood Tide, documents and reimagines a journey down the Hudson River on a fleet of sculptural rafts dreamed up by the artist Swoon. He is the co-creator of the installation and programming platform Empire Drive-In, and was a founding member of the Miss Rockaway Armada and the band Dark Dark Dark.
Chandler’s films and installations have been featured at the Hammer Museum, Mattress Factory, True/False, Torino Film Festival, Brooklyn Museum, Mass MoCA, Camden International Film Festival, 01SJ Biennial, and the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. His projects have been written about in Filmmaker Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, BBC, and New York Magazine. He has received fellowships and support from the Sundance Institute, the Jerome Foundation, Doc Society, International Documentary Association, and the Wexner Center for the Arts.