CALICO REBELLION
Upcoming screenings:
--Tuesday, October 28: Andes Central School
this screening is for the Andes school students only
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-- Friday, November 14,2025: Glimmerglass Film Days, Cooperstown
10 am at Fenimore Farm’s Jones Center (the big stone barn at what was
formerly known as the Farmers’ Museum)
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--Thursday March 19,2026: Catskill Mountain Foundation
6 pm at Doctorow Center for the Arts,
7971 Main St, Hunter, NY 12442
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--Tuesday March 24,2026: Seton Hall University, NJ
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2 Main St
Delhi, NY 13753
a documentary about land and freedom
a film by Victoria Kupchinetsky
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THE STORY
Exploration of a pivotal moment in American history and a community’s unique and enduring connection
to the past.
In mid-19th century, NY state farmers were held in indentured servitude by absentee aristocratic landlords,
who exploited their labor and refused to sell them the land.
Tired of paying rent for the land they toiled on but could not own, the farmers banded together to fight the injustice.
Although none were Native Americans, they called themselves Calico Indians, invoking a strong connection to Boston Tea Party protestors and the struggle for American independence.
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The uprising paved the way to land reform across America, and the creation of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party. Two of the five committee members that formed the Republican Party in 1854 — the anti-slavery party of “free soil and free men” — were activists of the Anti-Rent Movement from this area.
Today those farmers’ descendants’ are making this overlooked, yet pivotal moment in American history tangible through their unique connection to the past.
THE FILM
The collective voice of the town, the past that informs the present.
CALICO REBELLION weaves together vérité scenes, interviews, historical archive and animation to bring to light pressing social, political and class issues. The film delves deep into the “small town USA" identity and searches for modern day relevance in America's complex history.
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Within this complex tapestry, the rare original Calico Costume from 1845 emerges as a character in its own right: an archetypal image of the farmers’ rebellion and of its wild spirit - still alive in the lush Catskill Mountains.
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On screen, myth is intertwined with reality - unfolding slowly in a fairy-tale, menacing at times, like a dream imbued with the wildness of nature itself. The story is conveyed through the language of mythology and history of place.
THE COSTUMES
They wanted to free themselves from feudalism – and created a flamboyant subculture.
“The ultimate truth of America’s physical nature – rocks, water, sky – were intimately linked to a metaphysical American nature that would always be bound up with mythic national identities. The secrets to both natures lay in Indianness. It is in this particular, historical relation between immigrants, natives, land, and political rebellion that Indianness began to acquire its most critical meanings.
When white Americans dressed as Indians, they sent the signal of total rebellion. Ideas signified by Indianness were deeply ingrained in the American cultural psyche and ideologically very powerful ... Amidst the steel skyscrapers of the alienating modern city, the Indian continued to lie in wait, always materializing when citizens gathered to proclaim American -- and now modern -- identities."
Philip Deloria, "Playing Indian"
WHY NOW?
The spirit of resistance is alive and well today
Attuned to the complexities of history, CALICO REBELLION shows the contradictions of the past,
and their influence on the present.
In shedding light upon the dramatic story of a little known 19th century farmers’ uprising, the film reveals the radical democratic potential of modern Americans’ connection to the land and their environment.