In January 1996, high school sophomore outcasts, Kasten Searles and Mothra (aka Malic Amalya) aired their cable access television show "Killer Janitors" across the Burlington, Vermont area, where they lived. Filming on a VHS-C camcorder, they taped their show in their high school hallways, library, and cafeteria; through culvert pipes; on bus rides home; while wandering downtown; and during weekend sleepovers. Edited on an analogue VHS system at the local cable access station, their final cut was a single, 30-minute episode, influenced by punk, alternative, and riot grrrl subcultures, daytime and late-night TV, B movies, and art class.
I Wake Up with a Flower in my Hand is a 25-year anniversary remix of Killer Janitors. Using all original footage and adding no special effects, the new cut focuses on how the best friends saw each other and understood themselves within the context of their friendship, high school, home lives, and a world beyond their small-town confinements -- felt but not yet touched.

Production Credits:
remix: Malic Amalya
original image / edit: Kasten Searles & Malic Amalya

Selected Screenings:
Revolutions Per Minute, The Brattle, Cambridge, MA, 2024
Shoe Bones Gallery, Salem, MA, 2023
Onion City Experimental Film Festival, Chicago, IL, 2021
Burnt 3: Video Art & Experimental Film Festival, Montreal, Canada, 2021
TRANSlations: Seattle Trans Film Festival, Seattle, WA, 2021
Wicked Queer: Boston's LGBTQ Film Festival, Boston, MA, 2021