Tyler Stallings has been making video art since the late-1980s. He has been making feature-length and short documentary films since 2020. He often collaborates with artist Naida Osline on the films.
FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARIES
Chronologically ordered beginning with most recent
CARLOS: BEING OF LIGHT
This is a feature-length documentary by Tyler Stallings about Carlos, an artist making visible the invisible through his paintings that act as visual metaphors for his encounters with extraterrestrial beings of light. Carlos asks us to reconsider human evolution, spirituality, and ecology, and why is it that we humans must feel in control of nature? For Carlos, empathy is the key to future relationships, whether with fellow humans, the planet, or Beings of Light. Over the years, scholars have compared his encounter experiences with those by other Catholic saints and mystics. Harvard psychiatrist, John E. Mack, devoted a chapter to Carlos in his groundbreaking and influential book from 1994, “Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens.”
Release date: 2021
Producer, director, and editor: Tyler Stallings
Associate producer: Naida Osline
Star: Carlos
Running time: 67 mins.
This project envisions the pool not just as a source of recreation and sybaritic pleasure but as a fraught symbol that quivers with meaning and foreboding…
—John Mack, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens
HOMETOWN PROUD
After 30 years of living openly gay in California, Archer, a dance teacher and handyman, returns to his small hometown of Botkins, Ohio (population 1,164), where he has been invited to be a featured performer in the annual “Miss Carousel” pageant. HOMETOWN PROUD follows Archer as he resolves to enhance Botkins’ annual summer festival with a dash of rainbow pride. This feature-length documentary by Naida Osline and Tyler Stallings, blends formal interviews with direct cinema/cinema verite, inspired by Osline’s iconic compositions in her photo-based work and Stallings’ lyrical writing style.
Release date: 2020
Producer, director, and editor: Naida Osline and Tyler Stallings
Star: Archer Altstaetter
Running time: 60 mins. 11 secs.
The film quickly establishes through observations made by its subjects, cultural rifts that are reflected in communities across the country, large and small, and writ large in everything from our electoral politics and battles over Supreme Court nominations, to small business lawsuits over providing service to LGBTQ people.
—Christopher Michno, Artillery magazine
ALMOST PRESIDENTIAL — THE MOVIE
Following on the 2020 U.S. Presidential election on Nov. 3, 2020, a film connected to Orange Coast College’s Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion’s newest online project, “ALMOST PRESIDENTIAL,” looks at vice presidents and failed presidential candidates, investigating names forgotten to history or reduced to one-liners and supporting roles outside the spotlight. “ALMOST PRESIDENTIAL—THE FILM” is a 50-minute feature film oriented around a Zoom presentation from Oct. 1st, and presents new work by six artists who examine the American political landscape from an unfamiliar angle. Featuring sculpture, drawing, photography, installation, and video by Pio Abad, Deborah Aschheim, Matthew Brannon, and Cintia Segovia, and exhibition curators Marisa J. Futernick and Rebecca Sittler. Presenting a timely exploration of political rhetoric, failure, and gendered dynamics within political systems in the U.S. and beyond, including Mexico and the Philippines, these six artists combine fiction and historical fact into an active survey of political material, text, and image.
Release date: 2020
Producer and director: Tyler Stallings
Editor: Kevin Holder
Running time: 50 mins. 20 secs.