New Artist Member: Kelly Gallagher
Posted October 8th, 2025 in Announcements, New Acquisitions, New Digital Files, News / Events
Canyon Cinema is pleased to welcome Kelly Gallagher and her work to the collection!
Kelly Gallagher is a filmmaker, animator, and Associate Professor of Film at Syracuse University. She is the recipient of a 2024 Creative Capital award for her feature experimental documentary, By All Your Memories. Her handcrafted films and commissioned animations have screened at venues including: the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and the Smithsonian Institution. Recent commissioned animations have screened on Netflix and PBS. She’s presented solo programs of her work at institutions including: SFMOMA, Close-Up Cinema London, and Wexner Center for the Arts. Kelly enthusiastically organizes and facilitates fun and inclusive film workshops and camps for communities of all ages, from Kentucky to California, from New York to Iowa and beyond.
Twelve of Gallagher’s films are now available from Canyon Cinema, including:
In the Future (2021, 3 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
Knowing that another world is possible, individuals young and old share their hopes and dreams for the future.
We Had Each Other (2021, 15 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
Sisterhood and solidarity nourished the thirty-two Irish Republican women POWs at Armagh Gaol (Jail) in 1980, as they embarked on a transgressive, challenging, and oft-overlooked No-Wash protest against British Colonialism.
Pine and Genesee (2020, 2.5 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
A short experimental documentary about the site of a former stop on the Underground Railroad, the erasure of history, and what we owe those who came and struggled before us.
My Gossip (2018, 15 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
Incorporating live-action stop-motion and digital animation, this personal documentary colorfully explores the radical importance of women’s close friendships by examining the filmmaker’s relationship with her own best friend, and how women’s close friendships were historically weaponized against them.
Slower (2018, 7 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
A found footage personal essay film that explores the power of a woman who values her own pleasure.
Do You Want to Go for a Drive? (2016, 5 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
This short animated essay film illustrates the power and beauty of consent. The film also explores sexual agency, love, pleasure, mutual desire, violence, and vengeance. The title, a call and response with the final line of the film (“It’s you I really want to drive”), commences the entire viewing experience with the asking of a question- which is how all sexual encounters should begin, with the asking for consent.
More Dangerous Than a Thousand Rioters (2016, 6 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
An experimental animated documentary exploring the powerful and inspiring life of revolutionary Lucy Parsons.
FROM ALLY TO ACCOMPLICE (2015, 18 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
This film is an experimental essay in three movements that explores the importance of being more than an “ally” in struggle, by sharing histories of committed accomplices John Brown, Marilyn Buck, and others. The film also delves into the history of the landscape and former prairie that was the earth on which Brown’s militants trained. In the face of exploitation of people and destruction of land, radical struggle cultivates new life.
Pearl Pistols (2014, 3 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
A glitter-bomb resurrection of a speech by Queen Mother Moore.
Ceallaigh at Kilmainham (2013, 7 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
A 16mm collaged and handcrafted exploration of land, roots, and the strength of the women in the filmmaker’s family.
I AM THE MACE (2013, 4 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
“I am not your entertainment when you walk home from the bar, I am not some bitch that would look good in your car. I am the MACE in my pocket, waiting to blind you. I am the knife in my purse, waiting to cut you.”
A Herstory of Women Filmmakers (2019, 15 minutes, color, sound, digital file)
An eccentric, animated documentary on the ‘herstory’ of some of motion picture’s greatest (and often overlooked) contributors. Can you easily name a handful of your favorite women filmmakers? By the end of this colorful and vibrant short you’ll be able to.
