Catalogue > At random

Fragmented records of events almost too sinister to believe: Cold War era covert radiation testing performed by the United States government on its citizens. The film grapples with the challenges of documenting the invisible, and capturing what is merely waves and frequencies. Shot on expired film, it is through the contaminated image and a complex soundscape that the unseen becomes manifest. – Cristina Kolozsváry-Kiss, IFFR During the Cold War, the U.S. government developed a program of covert human radiation experiments, using its own citizens as test subjects. Suspicions About the Hidden Realities of Air is an elliptical exploration of this dark historical episode, operating across vast landscapes and individual human bodies. Fragments of archival and 16mm imagery – shot on expired film stock – evoke the locations of numerous test sites across the United States. Urban landscapes at night, bleached scenes of the American desert, and close-up details of rural America are interwoven with voice-over and on-screen text that reference testimony of the continuing impact of this period of covert testing. – Open City Documentary Festival

Sam Drake (b. Dayton, OH) is a filmmaker based in Milwaukee, WI. Her work has been exhibited at film festivals and venues including The Museum of Modern Art, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Media City Film Festival, CROSSROADS, The Museum of the Moving Image, Alternative Film/Video, Collectif Jeune Cinéma, Non-Syntax Experimental Image, Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, Transient Visions Festival of the Moving Image, and Antimatter. She has programmed for the Union Cinema and Mini Microcinema and is currently a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.