COLLAPSE is a filmmaking/performance art group out of Boise, Idaho USA, run by Kelly Broich, Brad Kaup, and an assortment of rotating cast and crew members.

For almost a decade they had remained an obscure outfit, creating numerous experimental shorts,  semi narrative and character driven works without any credits or opening titles, floating only under the pseudonym “American Films”.

“Amercian Films” were the first to create online experimental-absurdist works with high production value, thus masking the work to be that of the typical “Sundance quality short film” only to have the viewer be lured into something completely different (aka original), void of the usual feel good, calling card endeavors created by most digital filmmakers of the time.

Collapse/American Films is also noted as being the first to bridge the gap of Underground and Experimental film, and taking it to the next logical level: Absurdism.  

Collapse created the first ever Absurdist Film Festival in 2010 and has since expanded into theater and performance art with the forming of Collapse Theater, as well as screening work at the San Francisco Underground short film festival and CINEFRINGE.

The second Absurdist Film Festival is slated for autumn, 2014.

Their YouTube Channel (their second, the first one got banned – UPDATE – and this channel appears to be on the verge of getting banned, catch it while you can) is HERE.
Here are a few works:

 

Prarie Girl plays on the absurdity of the disconnection between nature and (wo)man, reminding us of our natural functions, animalistic nature, and the true appreciation we should feel for such; hence the resulting clenched faced, unwatchable outcome speaks volumes.