Boston-area filmmaker Chelsea Spear has directed four short films -- "Alphabet", "The Hidden", "The Unhappy Medium", and "Mayday on the Mystic" -- and two installations, "Films About Water" and "Orangutan". A true cinematic polymath, she has also worked as a production assistant on several productions (most notably the acclaimed documentaries My Father the Genius and Bible Battles), worked as a viewer on the Boston Underground Film Festival, and taught video production at Malden Access Television.
Spear draws inspiration from fairy tales, folk tales, and mythology. The mythology of film history also inspires her, particularly silent and early sound film, "undependent" regional features that flourished before independent film became a household name, highly-structured industrial films, and features that fall through the cracks. As someone who identifies with feminism, she is proud of the strong, intelligent girls at the heart of her films, and she frequently assembles predominantly female crews.
Spear's films have screened everywhere from Austin's Ladyfest to the side of a building in Zurich, to the Brattle Theatre in her hometown of Boston. Her work has received acclaim from syndicated horror movie host Mr. Lobo and from renowned director Guy Maddin, who describes Spear's first film "Alphabet" as "very, very beautiful".