Directed by Kimi Takesue • 2023 • Laos, United States
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 elaborate painterly tableaus unfold, revealing whimsical and at times disruptive juxtapositions of locals and foreigners at rest and play. Drawn to spectacle, tourists swarm to magnificent Buddhist temples, the ordered rituals of monks, and sites of dazzling natural beauty, 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 reflect on their own modes of tourism, while asking the looming existential questions: Why do we travel? What do we seek?
Up Next in Directed by Kimi Takesue
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Bound
Directed by Kimi Takesue • 1995 • United Kingdom
A young Chinese British woman undertakes a symbolic journey of self-discovery. Incorporating elements of poetry and dance within a dramatic narrative, BOUND explores a woman’s attempt to reconcile the past with the present as she confronts the co...
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Rosewater
Directed by Kimi Takesue • 1999 • United States
A solitary man struggles to cultivate beauty in a desolate urban world. Lonely and dislocated, he drifts in and out of a dream state envisioning the promise of regeneration. ROSEWATER tells a story of hope sustained through perseverance, ritual and...
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Heaven’s Crossroad
Directed by Kimi Takesue • 2002 • United States
HEAVEN’S CROSSROAD traces an impressionistic journey through Vietnam exploring the nuances and complexities of “looking” cross-culturally. Structured in a series of observational yet stylized vignettes, this experimental documentary investigates sh...
