Colleen Kelly

Colleen Kelly Poplin is a documentary filmmaker and sound artist. Her work explores gender roles and inequality, religion and spirituality, family and domestic life, and the inextricable ties that bind these concepts together. Much of her recent documentary work draws from one of her creative obsessions: archival video. The Privileges and Responsibilities of Sisters uses sermons delivered between 1972 to 2014 to examine the perceptions of women held by Mormon religious leaders. Enjoy the Suffering reappropriates local evening news reports and bondage pornography to expose American rape culture and its effect on female sexuality. Her most recent project, Families Can Be Together Forever, follows her journey out of the Mormon church—a journey unexpectedly aligned with her first pregnancy. The film depicts her pregnancy from start to finish while exploring the emotional and spiritual weight of leaving Mormonism, its effect on the mother she hopes to become, and its effect on the mother who raised her.

Colleen has studied sound design, documentary production, and feminist media theory throughout her life.