FEATURED WORKS

Every Contact Leaves a Trace

A filmmaker opens up a box of business cards collected over thirty years and crafts a cinematic meditation on the fleeting connections that draw us to one another.

Contractions

In the wake of the overturning of Roe v Wade, “Contractions” takes us to Memphis, Tennessee where we contemplate the discontinuation of abortion services at a women’s health clinic.

Swerve

Paolo Javier is a poet who thinks like a filmmaker. I am a filmmaker who thinks like a poet. In Swerve, we’ve come up with our own kind of movie language, or at least a dialect that articulates how we observe the world together as two artists using images, sounds, and words.

Film About a Father Who

*World Premiere: Slamdance Film Festival 2020,
Opening Night Film, Park City ,Utah * NYC Premiere MoMA

Between 1984 and 2019, filmmaker Lynne Sachs shot film with her father, a bohemian businessman who sometimes chose to reveal less than was really there.

Same Stream Twice

In 2001, I photographed her at six years old, spinning like a top around me. Even then, I realized that her childhood was not something I could grasp but rather – like the wind – something I could feel tenderly brushing across my cheek.

Your Day is My Night

In Your Day is My Night, my collective of Chinese living in New York City explores the history and meaning of “shiftbeds” through verité conversations, character-driven fictions and integrated movement pieces.

Sound of a Shadow

A wabi sabi summer in Japan – observing that which is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete– produces a series of visual haiku in search of teeming street life, bodies in emotion, and leaf prints in the mud.

The Task of the Translator

Sachs pays homage to Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Task of the Translator” through three studies of the human body. First, she listens to the musings of a wartime doctor grappling with the task of a kind-of cosmetic surgery for corpses. Second, she witnesses a group of Classics scholars confronted with the haunting yet whimsical task of translating a newspaper article on Iraqi burial rituals into Latin. And finally, she turns to a radio news report on human remains.

Wind in Our Hair

Inspired by the stories of Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, yet blended with the realities of contemporary Argentina, “Wind in Our Hair” is an experimental narrative directed by New York filmmaker Lynne Sachs about four girls discovering themselves through a fascination with the trains that pass by their house. A story of early-teen anticipation and disappointment, “Wind in Our Hair” is circumscribed by a period of profound Argentine political and social unrest.

The Last Happy Day

“A fascinating, unconventional approach to a Holocaust-related story … a frequently charming work that makes no effort to disguise an underlying melancholy.” George Robinson, The Jewish Week

Abecedarium:NYC

Co-directed by Lynne Sachs and Susan Agliata with the support of the New York Public Library Abecedarium:NYC is an interactive online exhibition that reflects on the history, geography, and culture – both above and below ground – of New York City through 26 unusual words. Using original video, animation, photography and sound, Abecedarium:NYC constructs visual […]

States of UnBelonging

The core of this haunting meditation on war, land, the Bible, and filmmaking is a portrait of Revital Ohayon, an Israeli filmmaker and mother killed near the West Bank. Director Lynne Sachs creates a film on the violence of the Middle East by exchanging letters with an Israeli friend. Together, they reveal Revital’s story through her films, news reports, and interviews, culminating in heartbreaking footage of children discussing the violence they’ve witnessed.

Atalanta: 32 Years Later

Atalanta: 32 Years Later 5 min. color sound, 2006 16mm film released on MiniDV & DVD A retelling of the age-old fairy tale of the beautiful princess in search of the perfect prince.  In 1974, Marlo Thomas’ hip, liberal celebrity gang created a feminist version of the children’s parable for mainstream TV’s “Free To Be […]

Noa, Noa

Over the course of three years, Sachs collaborated with her daughter Noa (from 5 to 8 years old), criss-crossing the wooded landscapes of Brooklyn with camera and costumes in hand. Noa’s grand finale is her own rendition of the bluegrass classic “Crawdad Song”.

Investigation of a Flame

Investigation of a Flame:  A Portrait of the Catonsville Nine by Lynne Sachs 45 min. color and B&W, 2001 plus 5 min. Sundance Channel documentary on Daniel Berrigan and the making of the film On May 17, 1968 nine Vietnam War protesters led by Daniel and Philip Berrigan, walked into a Catonsville, Maryland draft board […]

Which Way is East: Notebooks from Vietnam

Note: To watch the full film, click here or scroll to the bottom of this page. by Lynne Sachs in Collaboration with Dana Sachs33 min. “A frog that sits at the bottom of a well thinks that thewhole sky is only as big as the lid of a pot.” In 1994, two American sisters – […]

Sermons and Sacred Pictures

An experimental documentary on Reverend L.O. Taylor, a Black Baptist minister from Memphis, Tennessee who was also an inspired filmmaker with an overwhelming interest in preserving the social and cultural fabric of his own community in the 1930′ s and ‘ 40’ s . I combine his films and music recordings with my own images of Memphis neighborhoods and religious gatherings, 1989 .

Drawn and Quartered

“Drawn and Quartered”, 4 min. color 16mm. by Lynne Sachs Optically printed images of a man and a woman fragmented by a film frame that is divided into four distinct sections. An experiment in form/content relationships that are peculiar to the medium, 1987 “Images of a male form (on the left) and a female form […]

CURRENT

October 2, 2026

Chicago Underground Film Festival 2026 Award Winners / Every Contact Leaves a Trace

Screen Magazine 01 Oct 2026 The Chicago Underground Film Festival has announced the award winners from its 33rd edition, which concluded Sunday following five days of independent, experimental and underground cinema. CUFF33 was the festival’s most successful edition in recent years, producing a 20% increase in both attendance and box-office revenue over 2025. The festival […]

Cinefile / Every Contact Leaves a Trace

https://www.cinefile.info/ Lynne Sachs’ EVERY CONTACT LEAVES A TRACE (US/Documentary)Sunday, 2:30pmI’m not related to Lynne Sachs, though I do know her personally, and one of the things I appreciate about her work is how it feels like an extension of spending time with her. Sachs often shares intimate details of her life in her films, yet […]