Kelly Reichardt

Behind every image in a film lies the possibility of another. Many possibilities. Just as behind the camera there is not only one person, but a team. Many. Different people whose collaboration leads to the one thing that then shines on the screen. But RAIN SET ACTION not only brings this to our attention; it also shows that there is nothing unimportant in the background, at the margins, or happening alongside. Gloves or no gloves, with an umbrella or without, one person arrives, another leaves, a third hurries past because it is pouring. The gaze follows, and a rhythm emerges in which, for a brief moment – between invention and reality – a world pulses. (Original german text by Alexandra Seitz)

In a sedate Massachusetts suburb circa 1970, unemployed family man and amateur art thief J.B. Mooney sets out on his first heist. With the museum cased and accomplices recruited, he has an airtight plan. Or so he thinks.

In the days leading up to a possibly career-changing exhibition, a sculptor navigates her relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.

A wordless portrait of sculptor Jessica Jackson Hutchins shows us the artist in the process of transforming clay into uncanny forms.

In the 1820s, a taciturn loner and skilled cook travels west to Oregon Territory, where he meets a Chinese immigrant also seeking his fortune. Soon the two team up on a dangerous scheme to steal milk from the wealthy landowner’s prized Jersey cow—the first, and only, in the territory.

His trainer stands below the tree holding a dead mouse by its tail and a clicker. Dimitri is meant to fly to his trainer. He has missed his cue. A perfectly still film crew is waiting for the owl to make his move. The crew has been shooting in these woods all week and has spotted a baby eagle and it’s mother. Dimitri seems to sense the eagle’s presence. The trainer calls the owl with a whistle and clicks his clicker. Dimitri is not listening.

Three strong-willed women strive to forge their own paths amidst the wide-open plains of the American Northwest: a lawyer forced to subdue a troubled client; a wife and mother whose plans to construct her dream home reveal fissures in her marriage; and a lonely ranch hand who forms an ambiguous bond with a young law student.

The story about three radical environmentalists coming together to execute the most intense protest of their lives: the explosion of a hydroelectric dam.

A group of settlers traveling through the Oregon High Desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.

"Tallahatchie Bridge": With those two simple words, the powerful images of a lost innocence, a murky river and a mysterious suicide spring to mind. Scorning the demands of her overbearing family, Bobbie Lee Hartley and Billy Joe McAllister meet at their usual Choctaw Ridge trysting place and attempt to consumate their forbidden love. Ode attempts to reconcile modern moralites with a tradition-bound faith, and asks whether it's possible to commit a sin against a religion that won't even have you as a member.

A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.

Soon to be a father, Mark feels the pressure of domestic responsibility closing in, so he is more than happy to accept when his old friend Kurt proposes a camping trip in the Oregon wilderness. During their time together, the men come to grips with the changes in their lives and the effect on their relationship.

An experimental film matching shifting colors with audio taken from an NPR radio interview with a mother who lost her son in the Iraq War.

An audio collage of snippets of narration culled from true crime TV shows, juxtaposed against serene Super-8 nature footage.

Cozy, a dissatisfied housewife, meets Lee at a bar. A drink turns into a home break-in, and a gunshot sends them on the run together, thinking they've committed murder.