The Observer

 Bottled Songs: The Observer

 

(a chapter from Bottled Songs, a series of four short films produced in collaboration with Kevin B. Lee)

 
 
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An intensely compelling viewing. Galibert-Laîné and Lee are rare artists who treat their audience as equals.

Thomas Flew, Sight and Sound Magazine

Galibert-Laîné and Lee invite us, with their smart blend of film criticism and creative non-fiction, to look over their shoulders and see what they see.

Inge Coolsaet, POV Magazine

 
 

Synopsis:

A researcher finds a phone video showing hundreds of ISIS captives running through a desert. She is puzzled that the video is posted on YouTube by Les Observateurs, a French state-funded news channel as a work of “citizen journalism”. While the video has been removed from many other channels, the French news channel’s legitimacy allows the video to remain online and spread terror over several years. Further investigation uncovers multiple variants of the footage on countless other sites, leading her to despair.

The film exists as a short film and as a 2-channel video installation.

It had its World Premiere at the True/False Festival 2020 (US) as part of a 4-channel installation co-authored with Kevin B. Lee and produced by MEMORY.

As part of Bottled Songs 1-4 it screened at the Open City Documentary Film Festival, the Kaunas International Film Festival, the Camden International Film Festival and the 2020 Logan Symposium - Centre for Investigative Journalism.

 
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This film was produced in the context of Bottled Songs, a series co-authored with Kevin B. Lee and supported by EMAP, the Sundance Institute and Eurimages.