This Doc Talk featured a screening of Kimi Takesue’s film, Onlookers. Following the screening, Takesue joined virtually for the Q&A.
ONLOOKERS offers a visually striking, immersive meditation on travel and tourism in Laos, reflecting on how we all live as observers. Traversing the country’s dusty roads and tranquil rivers, we watch as painterly tableaus unfold, revealing the whimsical and at times disruptive interweaving of locals and foreigners in rest and play. Tourists swarm sites of spectacle, then recede like a passing tide, leaving Laotians to continue with their daily lives. ONLOOKERS transports viewers on a sensorial journey of deep looking and listening, inviting audiences to contemplate their own modes of tourism, while asking enduring questions about what we seek when we travel.
Moderated by Lana Lin, Director of the Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies. Co-produced with Documentary Program Associates Adriana de Lucio (Media Studies ’24) and Johann Yamin (Media Studies ’24).
Kimi Takesue is an award-winning filmmaker working in documentary, experimental and narrative genres. Takesue’s films have screened at more than 250 film festivals and museums internationally including Sundance, Locarno, Toronto, New Directors /New Films, Cinéma du Reel, Centre Pompidou and MoMA and have aired on PBS, IFC, and the Sundance Channel. Takesue is the recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships, as well as the “Breakthrough Award” from Chicken and Egg Pictures recognizing women who have made significant contributions to the documentary field.
Presented by the Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies at the School of Media Studies at the Schools of Public Engagement.
The New School Doc Studies 