Recent Film Projects
Director - Learning to Dance - 23 minutes
What does the last period of our lives bring us, age 70 and beyond? What do you call this period and what are the challenges and joys it brings?
Learning to Dance explores the topic of aging, loss and identity, and the challenges we will all face if we are lucky enough to live a long life. Filmmaker Cat Ashworth uses performance art and her own personal story to create a ritual to mark her transition to this final period of life.
2023: Buffalo International Film Festival, Rochester One Take Film Festival
Ithaca Experimental Film Festival
2024: DocUtah, Oneota (Iowa) Film Festival
Director - The Iroquois Creation Story - 18 minutes
The Iroquois Creation Story film tells the story of how our earth came to be according to the oral story recited by the Haudenosaunee people for hundreds of years. This 17-minute film combines animation and dance to tell the story of Sky Woman and her Grandsons Flint and Sky Holder. The film was created for the Seneca Art & Culture Center at Ganondagan, in Victor, NY, where it is on display.
Editor - Voices From the Barrens - 58 minutes
Voices from the Barrens, Native People, Blueberries and Sovereignty, documents the wild blueberry harvest of the Wabanaki People from the USA and Canada. The film focuses on the Passamaquoddy tribe’s challenge to balance blueberry hand raking traditions with the economic realities of the world market, which favor mechanical harvesting.
Directed by Nancy Ghertner.
Video Installation - BeeEye - 6 screens
Immerse yourself in the world of the honeybee in BeeEye, a video installation. Enter the hexagon shaped structure and be surrounded by the sights and the sounds of the honeybee. BeeEye explores the human/honeybee connection in an abstract, symbolic, and spiritual experience for the viewer. As the images unfold, the visual message is about observing and connecting with the honeybee, and understanding the precarious position this tiny insect has in our ecosystem.
About Cat Ashworth
Director Cat Ashworth has been creating video art and documentary films for many years. Her work ranges from Performance Art, Video Installation, Documentary Film, and Animation and often incorporate hybrid elements that experiment with technique and form.
Cat is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Film and Animation at Rochester Institute of Technology.
contact: ccapph@rit.edu