Onlookers

Director: Kimi Takesue

2023 / 72min / DCP

In her third feature, Takesue turns her camera on tourists and travelers in Laos, observing how they react and respond to the local populations while also providing the opportunity for viewers to reflect on our own roles as observers in everyday life. A rich, meditative film about looking at people who have come to look, made up of painterly, precisely composed tableaux that both reveal the picturesque beauty of the local landscape and question the concept of the “picturesque,” all while revealing the persistence of colonial assumptions in contemporary package tourism.

Introduction and Q&As featuring director Kimi Takesue:
Friday, February 16th w/ Inney Prakesh
Saturday, February 17th w/ Dessane Lopez Cassell
Sunday, February 18th w/ Lynne Sachs
Wednesday, February 21st w/ Ari-Duong Nguyen