Calico Rebellion

DIR: Victoria Kupchinetsky
PRODS: Peter Hutchison, Misha Gutkin
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Joe Bender, Arseni Troitski
EDITOR: Matvey Kulakov  ANIMATOR: Matvey Kulakov

In the lush woods of New York’s Catskill Mountains, a mythical memory lives on. Of a time when men – armed with rifles and pitchforks, disguised in eerie leather masks and calico gowns – descended from the hills to stage the “Second American Revolution”.

Two hundred years ago immigrant farmers in the Catskills, fed up with oppression and exploitation by absentee landlords, staged a rebellion known as the Anti-Rent War. The uprising changed the course of history, paving the way to land rights across America and to the formation of a new political group — Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party.

Today, although largely forgotten, the historic uprising lives on through direct descendants of those rebellious farmers. CALICO REBELLION explores a pivotal moment in American history, and a community’s unique and enduring connection to the past through the songs, stories and costumes preserved from the 1840s.

Part historical “true crime” story – part meditation on land and belonging in America – CALICO REBELLION is a meditation on small town American history, identity, idealism and the violence that percolates beneath the surface.