Chel White began making independent short films after college, starting with a
drawn-on-film animation titled
Metal Dogs of India (1985). The film is widely considered the first noteworthy animated film using this technique.
The Washington Post describes it as "(a) musical frolic which wittily builds on ghostly, distorted images crossing the plate glass of a copier." The films that followed include
Dirt (1998),
Soulmate (2000),
Passage (2001),
Magda (2004),
A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process in Less Than 60 Seconds (2005),
Wind (2007), the feature film
Bucksville (2011), the Donald Trump horror parody
Little Donnie (2017), and
Dreams of a Fallen Astronaut (2020) part of the Gratzfilm omnibus
The One Minute Memoir. In 2002, as a poetic response to the tragedies of September 11, Chel White created
New York to be part of the omnibus collection
Underground Zero. The
Chicago Tribune called White's film "an eerie paean to the city itself," and Bill Stamets of the
Chicago Reader said, “Chel White’s
New York makes a ruined city enchanted again: jets ascend in twilight, framed by silhouetted rooftops and cranes, and droplets sparkle like tiny diamonds as kids delight in the spray of fire hydrants." White's 2007 short film,
Wind, was commissioned by
Radiohead’s creative director Dilly Gent and the climate change awareness group
Live Earth.
The New York Times Magazine describes it as "(a) beautiful film, very moving, set to a poem by Antonio Machado and narrated by Alec Baldwin." Using a
Robert Bly translation of the poem,
Wind creates a metaphor for humanity's lack of planet stewardship. Along with eight other Live Earth commissioned films, "Wind" made its world premiere in the opening night program of the 2007
Tribeca Film Festival with keynote speaker
Al Gore. The films of Chel White have screened in the
Sundance Film Festival,
Berlinale,
IFFR,
SXSW,
Ottawa International Animation Festival,
Annecy Festival,
Hiroshima International Animation Festival,
HKIFF,
SIFF, and the
Edinburgh International Film Festival. 2012 saw the release of
Bucksville, Chel White's directorial
feature film debut. Written and produced well before the
Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and the 2016 Trump presidential election,
Bucksville is a dark but eerily beautiful and prescient story about a young man who struggles to escape the reality of being bound for life to a disenfranchised, small town radical
militia started 20 years ago by his father. Distributed by
Phase 4 Films,
Bucksville stars Thomas Stroppel,
Ted Rooney and Allen Nause, with a cameo role by
Tom Berenger as The Patron of Justice. The
screenplay is by Laura McGie and Chel White, with music by
Tom Brosseau. Jamie S. Rich of
The Oregonian calls Bucksville, "An insightful portrayal of an extreme point of view without the expected self-righteous critique." White's museum screenings include the
Van Gogh Museum The Brooklyn Museum, The
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The
High Museum in Atlanta. His retrospective presentations include the
Ann Arbor Film Festival (1999 and 2002),
Southern Circuit (2002), the
Austin Film Society (2003), a 20-year career retrospective at the
Northwest Film Center (Portland Art Museum) (2012), and a
Bent Image Lab retrospective and masterclass at the
Ottawa International Animation Festival (2018). Chel White is the recipient of media arts
Fellowships from The
Rockefeller Foundation The
Regional Arts & Culture Council, Portland Oregon, and project grants from
Creative Capital, the Pacific Pioneer Fund and the
Oregon Arts Commission.
Fever Dreams and Heavenly Nightmares, a DVD compilation of Chel White's short
independent films, was released in 2006 by Microcinema International. The film premiered at the 2023
Ottawa International Animation Festival. == Professional career ==