Tribeca 2025: Director Toby Perl Freilich On The Amazing Life Of Artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles In 'Maintenance Artist'
The writer director elaborates on the journey of making this remarkable film...
Maintenance Artist is a powerful film about a truly exceptional woman, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who led a fascinating life based on valuing others. She saw maintenance work as art, and was a trailblazing performance artist. Loaded with footage of New York in the 1970s, mixed with contemporary interviews, this documentary tells the story of essential workers through the lens of an artist who not only saw them but also appreciated them publicly through her work. Director Toby Perl Freilich (Moynihan, Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment) recently spoke with Immersive via Zoom after the premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]
Let's talk about Maintenance Artist. Mierle Laderman Ukeles is such an impressive woman. What drew you to her? What was your first impression where you thought... I want to do a documentary about her...
I saw the Queens Museum exhibit on its last day. There was so much about her work that I thought would translate well into a film. Her story has social, cultural, urban, and art history. It had elements of feminism and environmental conservation. It was an epic story, considering its narrow focus. It's about an artist who serves as the artist-in-residence for the Department of Sanitation. It sounds so narrow. It did have this epic sweep. I thought what a great film this would make. I'm also from Queens; I'm Jewish, and I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home. The fact that Mierle was still an Orthodox Jew was something that completely blew me away. Her work was not about being Jewish per se, but it was about Jewish values. It was about the deepest values of what it means to be Jewish, which is to care.
The film follows that trajectory as well; it delves into issues without being preachy. One of the words that kept coming to mind was dignity.
Mierle told me a story about someone she knew, a sanitation worker. This worker would not let his wife hang his washed uniform out on the clothesline to dry because of the shame and stigma associated with the job. She thought it was sad and absurd because these workers were providing an essential service, and they shouldn't be ashamed of it. I think dignity is exactly the right word.
What was your journey like getting this funded...
It took me eight years because I couldn't get the money. I was having dinner with friends, and I mentioned I wanted to make a film about this topic, and I had zero money. My friend said, how about if I give you $5,000? With that, I started filming Mierle. Then, my friend helped me enlist another friend who also gave me 5,000. It was a couple of $5,000 increments.
Then, I applied for grants. I had the most beautiful grant proposal. The turning point in the fundraising was when I applied to Jewish Story Partners. The first time around, they said no. I almost didn't apply again. Someone encouraged me to apply again, and I did, and then I got a yes. This led to more help from other friends. They see it as a serious thing.
No one wants to be first...
That allowed me to hire an editor, Anne Alvergue. My hat goes off to her. It was so hard to find the focus. It was such a rich story, which was both its blessing and its curse because how do you tell this very large story? Anne was just terrific, and she loves archival. She had just directed and edited The Martha Mitchell Effect, which was nominated for an Oscar and had lots of archival footage. That was the tipping point. I got money from SCA that year. It was around 2023 that things started to change.
Who was your cameraperson?
I hired Vanessa Carr first; she is a very good camerawoman and has worked on projects for HBO. I wanted someone good at Cinema Verité. I knew I wanted it to have a more verité feel rather than a sit-down approach. She did sound, too; it was just the two of us. I didn't have anybody else in the beginning.
What was it like when you first met Mierle, and what did it take to convince her?
We have a mutual friend who introduced us. Mierle and I met for coffee, which lasted three hours. At the end of it, I said, "I'd like to make a film about you." She said no but agreed to let me film her going through her archives for the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian. After that, the Whitney Museum acquired a number of her works, and I filmed her preparing. That's how it began.
I think her leap of faith was to say, you can have my archival films. She had the foresight to film and photograph the ephemeral work, and that became the artwork. She had all of this analog material sitting in a metal cabinet in her office at the Department of Sanitation. It was slowly degrading, so I was happy to use some of my money to digitize it.
It's amazing how much people film themselves now. Stuff from the past is just such a treasure. What were some revelatory moments or surprises?
When you're watching the footage, in your mind, you want something, and then it's there. When she did the Touch Sanitation performance, she spent 11 months shaking hands with every sanitation worker; thank you for keeping New York City alive.
One guy told a story about a hot August day when he briefly sat down while on his route, and a woman asked him to get off her porch. She called him 'a smelly garbage man'. He said that stuck with him for 17 years. Mierle had recreated the porch and had the sanitation workers send her the worst names they had ever been called and put them on the porch, then cleaned them off. I think seeing that... I knew that story. She had told me about it, but seeing the footage was very powerful.
The moment when she's talking to all the sanitation workers, and then they start discussing how they're mostly disabled veterans. I found it to be a truly powerful moment in the movie.
The vet thing added a whole other dimension to the story. To talk about service workers who are reviled or people who do things for their country and then get hated for it.
How long did it take to edit?
It took about 5 months for the assembly. I was able to raise another 20 thousand, then went back into the editing room for a month for a rough cut. We had a friends and family screening of the rough cut, and we got a lot of feedback. I was able to really start raising more money in a serious way. We went back into the editing room, and on a whim, I think it was Anne, the editor, who said you should enter this in Tribeca even though it wasn't finished. It was right before the deadline. We got in and came up with a schedule; Judith Mizrachy, my producer, is fabulous. It was a sprint to the finish line.
What's it like being on the other end of this now? What was the premiere like, and what do you hope they get out of it?
It's exhilarating seeing it come to life. I want to raise consciousness. I hope people learn not to take people for granted. Societies are made up not just of queen bees but a lot of drones. We're all in this together. We're all living on one planet. It's a fragile one. We have to sort of stop and look around and be aware of what it takes to keep life going day to day. It's thrilling that I have this wonderful and beautiful tool with which to do that. The issue is how do we make sure that it gets seen. It's not just an American theme; it's a universal theme.
Maintenance Artist is currently playing in festivals.