TJFF 2026 Film: Maintenance Artist
- Screenings
Wednesday June 10 | 5:30 - 7 PM
Carlton Cinema
Koffler Arts and the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation Co-Present Maintenance Artist at The Jewish Film Festival
United States, 2025, 95 min
Director: Toby Perl Freilich
Official Selection at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2026 Hot Docs Festival.
As a new mother, artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles realized that her avant-garde heroes—Duchamp, Rothko, Pollock—were men, who “didn’t change diapers.” This inspired her “Maintenance Manifesto,” and her groundbreaking public art career devoted to making the unseen visible, elevating maintenance work—childcare, garbage collection, security, custodial labour, etc—to an art form. This documentary, featuring never-before-seen archival footage, follows Ukeles from the 1970s, when she becomes the first artist-in-residence at the NYC Department of Sanitation, to today, as she radically reframes public art, acting on the Jewish belief that the profane is a pathway to the sacred, and that every life is holy. This “visually explosive portrait” (NBC New York) also captures the evolution of the New York art scene over the course of her career.
Use discount code: KA@TJFF
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