Dicky Bahto

A note on the ruins for visitors is a deeply personal portrait of the Assyrian community from fragments of material drawn from Bahto’s family history, ancient artifacts, and collaborations with contemporary artists working across the diaspora. “When Daesh invaded Iraq and released videos of themselves destroying ancient Assyrian artworks in the Mosul Museum,” Bahto explains, “I found myself thinking more deeply about my relationship to history as the grandchild of survivors of Seyfo – the Assyrian genocide. In fact, I realized that the genocide hadn’t ended.” The film investigates the materiality of cultural memory alongside its personal and spiritual dimensions, embodying the rebuilding of a community and connection to culture that honors the past while insisting on an open future.

A feature film that captures a travel into the village of Lyssarea for the Temenos, the inaugural screenings of Gregory J. Markopoulos's Eniaios (2004-2026). From Athens to the region of Arcadia, a film about friend's wanderings, the quietness of nature and an observation of the movement of light in Greece and the Peloponnese.

Music for a Bellowing Room' is a collaborative durational work by musician Sarah Davachi and filmmaker Dicky Bahto, both based in Los Angeles. With a performance/running time of three hours, 'Music for a Bellowing Room' is an exercise in resolution, inviting the audience to shift their concentration and perception through gradual changes in sound and image. This piece was originally commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and received its premiere performance in September 2023.

Feature-length experimental film. Accompanied live performances by Grouper in her fall 2026 tour.

Feature-length film by Dicky Bahto, accompanied by composer Sarah Davachi's work 'Double Reeds'.

Super 8 to video, color & b/w, music by Raum.

Daily afternoon ritual. Made with the help of my partner, Patrick Londen, and featuring Katoosh.

Short film by Dicky Bahto

A portrait of Cesar Cofone

A note on the ruins for visitors is a deeply personal portrait of the Assyrian community from fragments of material drawn from Bahto’s family history, ancient artifacts, and collaborations with contemporary artists working across the diaspora. “When Daesh invaded Iraq and released videos of themselves destroying ancient Assyrian artworks in the Mosul Museum,” Bahto explains, “I found myself thinking more deeply about my relationship to history as the grandchild of survivors of Seyfo – the Assyrian genocide. In fact, I realized that the genocide hadn’t ended.” The film investigates the materiality of cultural memory alongside its personal and spiritual dimensions, embodying the rebuilding of a community and connection to culture that honors the past while insisting on an open future.

A suite of twelve short canons for two voices that was originally commissioned by the Huntington, this film is grounded in the colors and textures of plants found in their Desert Garden Conservatory in conversation with other artists’ representations of plants, found in works in the collection of the institution ranging from medieval Books of Hours to Severin Roesen’s “Still Life with Flowers and Bird’s Nest.” This film is dedicated to Janis Crystal Lipzin—dear friend, mentor, artist, and gardener.

"What's a Life?" is a project that developed over the course of a few years incorporating material recorded on Super 8 film, cell phone video, and audio recordings. The recordings are a mix of portraits of musicians as well as diary material focused on sound and music. While the project was "alive" and I was still accumulating new material, I would present it as a multimedia installation or as expanded cinema performances involving multiple television screens, video and Super 8 projection, cassette tapes, and mp3 audio playback, editing the material anew for each presentation and incorporating varying amounts of chance and site-specificity into each version. After a few years of letting the work live, breath, and grow, I decided to stop it's life in this form, and have since edited an hour and a half long single channel video work, some sections of which (the one you are seeing now for instance) may be shown independently.

sound, 13.5 minutes, Super 8mm

A feature length film by Dicky Bahto, to accompany Grouper's live performances in 2022.

silent, 10m, digital

Music for a Bellowing Room' is a collaborative durational work by musician Sarah Davachi and filmmaker Dicky Bahto, both based in Los Angeles. With a performance/running time of three hours, 'Music for a Bellowing Room' is an exercise in resolution, inviting the audience to shift their concentration and perception through gradual changes in sound and image. This piece was originally commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and received its premiere performance in September 2023.

Combines home movie footage of his father with visual variations based on the game backgammon. Commissioned by the television station Canal180 in Portugal with a composition scored for it by Matmos, or shown silently.

CHATTY CATTIES is a black comedy set in an alternate reality where cats can communicate with people. At the center of the film are Shelby, a Holly Godarkly type, and her cat, Leonard. When Shelby begins dating a friendly musician named Nate, Leonard starts to see a light at the end of the tunnel. At its heart the film is about communication and agency. In order to highlight this theme the cats are voiced by Deaf/HoH actors. We aim to address issues facing the Deaf community and other under-represented groups in a subtle way, and to give Deaf actors opportunities to play the kinds of roles that they are not normally offered, roles in which their hearing loss is not part of the plot.