Filmography

Films by Minor Characters founding members

Directed by Minor Characters founding member Kristin Kane and board member Anil Ananthaswamy, this short documentary asks how we know that a problem is impossible to solve. Produced for the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

A collaboration by founding members David Young Kim and Amelia Saul.

The Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini painted Saint Francis in the Desert, today on view in New York’s Frick Collection, which is perhaps the most significant Renaissance painting in North America. In this film essay, we sail to where Francis once stood, where Bellini perhaps went, a deserted island in the Venetian Lagoon. And deeper, we explore the scenic background of the painting, following its resonances through layers of paint to the sediments of time. 

“A gorgeous, elegiac essay film about humanity as an island — with revelatory scenes of ancient cities and future floods, lost space and deep time….this film is a map of unmooring, of the ways in which art may still upend our history and our fate.” - Michelle Kuo (MoMA)

Written by Minor Characters founding member Siobhan Roberts and directed by Andy Keen, this short documentary tells the story of the mathematician John Horton Conway's visit to get his brain investigated by McMaster neuroscientist Sandra Witelson (who also STUDIED Einstein's brain). It was created as a trailer for Roberts' biography of Conway, Genius at Play.

This documentary follows the mathematician Donald Coxeter, age 95, on his journey to Budapest for a geometry conference in 2002. Minor Characters founding member Siobhan Roberts was the writer and creative producer for the film, which was commissioned by TVOntario; it is based on her biography of Coxeter, King of Infinite Space.

Part one of a triptych referencing distinct historical periods and tropes of romantic love. This first film shows the grand geste: a young woman hires an airplane to write a word in the sky, but it fails spectacularly. Directed by Minor Characters founding member Amelia Saul.