Stream of Life - my upcoming documentary film project

“An intimate and courageous work” -The New Yorker

“Stream of Life” documentary, written and edited by Käla Mandrake

*This is the trailer for my latest documentary film project for the director and multi-media artist Marc Lafia. An intimate portrait of his career and his family over the span of over 20 years, this piece has been described as “a majestic and operatic film that transforms private archives into a universal meditation on time, love, and human vulnerability”.

*In Stream of Life, Marc Lafia and long-time collaborator Käla Mandrake present a filmic meditation on the intersections of fiction, memory, and reality. Spanning 25 years of Lafia’s kaleidoscopic career—including narrative films, performance art, and intimate family recordings—the film dissolves the boundaries between personal archive and staged storytelling. Through Mandrake’s editing, family footage intertwines with Lafia’s fictional narratives, creating a non-linear, poetic structure that mirrors the fragmented experience of memory and time. This interplay reveals cinema not merely as a medium but as an emotional language—a reflection of human desire, affection, and the evolving dynamics of self-representation.

In the digital era, where every moment is recorded and shared, Stream of Life interrogates the role of the archive as both a deeply personal and universal construct. By juxtaposing private moments with staged artifice, Lafia challenges viewers to consider their own relationship with images, memories, and self-narration.

Described by critics as “a hauntingly beautiful mosaic of life and art” (Film Comment), “a masterful interrogation of the image in the digital age” (Artforum), and “an intimate and courageous work” (The New Yorker), Stream of Life transcends autobiography to become a mirror for our performative society. It is a film that transforms the everyday into the operatic while bringing the operatic down to earth, reshaping our understanding of family, creativity, and the cinematic form itself.

*official synopsis