
Directing
Ariella Pahlke is a Canadian documentary and video artist, curator, and educator living in Terence Bay, Nova Scotia. With a background in philosophy, Ariella has spent the past seventeen years creating documentaries and independent shorts, collaborating on multi-media performance pieces, curating, and teaching. Her film and video work has been shown on television, at festivals and in galleries throughout Canada and the US, and in Norway, India, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Burning Rubber is a provocative re-framing of burnouts and rural car culture - a filmmaker's search for meaning in a disregarded and often maligned form of self-expression. Based primarily in rural Nova Scotia, Burning Rubber weaves a predominantly male car culture together with artists and the curiosity of outsiders, stimulating larger questions about identity, creativity, gender, freedom, and how we decide what is valued and given meaning as art.

Michael moves in with Ariella for several months. He doesn't know anyone in town, but often arrives at home with stories of sexual adventures that happen on his way into town or back, or between errands in Halifax. As this is much the opposite of what's going on in Ariella's life at the time, she is intrigued, but also puzzled. Michael's cruising stories capture her curiosity and they often talk, but one day when he comes home she's equipped with an alter ego and a video camera.

Michael moves in with Ariella for several months. He doesn't know anyone in town, but often arrives at home with stories of sexual adventures that happen on his way into town or back, or between errands in Halifax. As this is much the opposite of what's going on in Ariella's life at the time, she is intrigued, but also puzzled. Michael's cruising stories capture her curiosity and they often talk, but one day when he comes home she's equipped with an alter ego and a video camera.

Burning Rubber is a provocative re-framing of burnouts and rural car culture - a filmmaker's search for meaning in a disregarded and often maligned form of self-expression. Based primarily in rural Nova Scotia, Burning Rubber weaves a predominantly male car culture together with artists and the curiosity of outsiders, stimulating larger questions about identity, creativity, gender, freedom, and how we decide what is valued and given meaning as art.

Burning Rubber is a provocative re-framing of burnouts and rural car culture - a filmmaker's search for meaning in a disregarded and often maligned form of self-expression. Based primarily in rural Nova Scotia, Burning Rubber weaves a predominantly male car culture together with artists and the curiosity of outsiders, stimulating larger questions about identity, creativity, gender, freedom, and how we decide what is valued and given meaning as art.

Burning Rubber is a provocative re-framing of burnouts and rural car culture - a filmmaker's search for meaning in a disregarded and often maligned form of self-expression. Based primarily in rural Nova Scotia, Burning Rubber weaves a predominantly male car culture together with artists and the curiosity of outsiders, stimulating larger questions about identity, creativity, gender, freedom, and how we decide what is valued and given meaning as art.

Charlie's Prospect is a video fable set to an original music score for choir. Set in Lower Prospect, Nova Scotia, Charlie's Prospect is based on a true story in which a folk artist tries to preserve the way of life in his small fishing community by building a replica of the village on his front lawn. One day a wealthy young family drives by and wants to buy the entire model village. The artist is faced with a dilemma that is resolved later that night, as fantasy and reality merge.

Conviction envisions alternatives to prison through the eyes of women behind bars and those fighting on the front lines of the decarceration movement. Not another ‘broken prison’ film, this collaboration is a ‘broken society’ film—an ambitious and inspired re-build of our community, from the inside out. The film compels viewers to examine why we imprison the most vulnerable among us, and at what cost.
