FILMS
HOT POTATOES: AN ATOMIC TALE
2024
DUR: 30 MINS 8 SECS
Hot Potatoes - An Atomic Tale is a documentary film told from the personal perspective of Jerry Sears, a U.S Navy veteran, who was on picket duty during the Atomic tests series in the Pacific Marshall Islands in 1958. By his 18th birthday, Jerry had witnessed, at close range, over 20 atomic bomb tests. Jerry was a mess cook in the galley on the ship and was stationed in the “spud locker” which was on the main deck. This is where Jerry peeled all the potatoes, salads and veggies that made up the three meals a day. Whilst on duty, Jerry happened to get hold of a geiger counter and used it on the ships supply of potatoes stored in the open on the main deck. The geiger counter showed that the potatoes were contaminated with radiation from the bomb tests. Jerry wanted to throw the potatoes over the side, but the Chief Petty Officer ordered Jerry to wash them, peel the potatoes for the three meals a day and include them in the cook sequence and put them out on the food line, which Jerry was forced to obey.
DIRECTOR - PETER STERN
An Improbable Odyssey:
The Life and Times of Brian Wall
2021
DIRECTOR/EDITOR - PETER STERN.
Born in London in 1931, and despite an impoverished childhood during World War II and no formal art education, Brian Wall has achieved renown for his abstract steel sculptures. In this documentary film we follow Wall on his remarkable journey from the modernist art center of St. Ives, Cornwall in the ‘50s to the Swinging London art scene of the ‘60s to his arrival in America in the ‘70s. Wall continues to live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area today.
DIRECTOR/EDITOR - PETER STERN. DUR: 60 MINS
AN IMPROBABLE ODYSSEY short trailer DUR: 25 SECS
AN IMPROBABLE ODYSSEY long form trailer DUR: 6 MINS 23 SECS
BEYOND TIME - WILLIAM TURNBULL
A FILM BY
ALEX TURNBULL & PETER STERN
DUR: 60 MINS.
2012
Documentary which journeys into the life and work of Scottish artist William Turnbull, widely recognised as one of the pioneers of modernism in Britain.
GILBERT & GEORGE
PISS DRYING IN THE MORNING ON TARMAC
DUR: 21 MINS
DIRECTOR / EDITOR: PETER STERN
2023
This documentary film is an interview gallery walk through with British artists, Gilbert & George at the first gallery show of their Rudimentary Pictures on the West Coast of the United States at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, California in 2000.
KARIMA - A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A HENNA GIRL
DIRECTOR - HASSAN HAJJAJ
EDITOR - PETER STERN
2015
Set in Marrakech, the documentary, which made its debut at LACMA and Art Basel in 2015, explores themes of gender roles in contemporary Islamic culture, as it details the life of Karima, a local icon who spends her days creating intricate henna designs for tourists in the bustling Jemaa el-Fnaa square in Marrakech’s old Medina district. The documentary is a follow-up to Kesh Angels, a series of photographs by Hassan Hajajj of a fashion-forward motorcycle gang of women in Marrakech who are known for breezing through narrow alleyways on bikes, their vibrant veils and traditional djellabas billowing behind them.
KARIMA - A HENNA GIRL trailer
METROPOLIS II -
HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
DIRECTED AND WRITTEN by
PHIL SWINBURNE
EDITOR - PETER STERN
2015
A road movie for children of all ages.
Set within Metropolis II, a kinetic sculpture by Chris Burden at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Film duration: 13 mins
DREAM TO CHANGE THE WORLD
A TRIBUTE TO JOHN LA ROSE
DIRECTED BY HORACE OVÉ
EDITED BY PETER STERN
2003
JOHN LA ROSE