Richard Wiebe’s (he/him) award-winning work has screened widely at international film festivals including IFF Rotterdam, Media City, Cannes Cinéfondation, FIDMarseille, Festival du nouveau cinéma Montreal, UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and several others. He is the recipient of grants from the Princess Grace Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Richard teaches courses in sound design, screenwriting, and the art of the short at Hamline University and FilmNorth. He is the Experimental Cinema programmer for the Minneapolis/Saint Paul International Film Festival (MSPIFF) and a member of the collective Cellular Cinema.

Fellowship Statement

My current project-in-progress is a feature-length experimental documentary focusing on World War I cameraman Leon Caverly, the first official war cinematographer of the United States military. Using Caverly’s pro-war cinematography found in the National Archives, I will fashion an anti-war film. Caverly shot the film 100 years ago, I will edit and do the sound design. This constraint-based collaboration with Caverly will also include materials from early American cinema, television, and other archival sources, alongside contemporary footage I have shot. Ultimately, this project will result in a de-stratified history of American militarism from the canons of the Confederacy at the Siege of Petersburg to depictions of unrest today. World War I propaganda, where cinematic propaganda first blossomed, is the center that holds it all together.