Countdown to FILMADRID: The Coronavirus Video Essay

Gesundheit!

Starting in 2019, I had four video essays selected by FILMADRID and MUBI spread out over a period of four years. As I anticipate my experience at the fest this month, I’m going to repost those four video essays here.

Here’s the third one:

This is one of my best, most underappreciated video essays! It is one of the first examples of a topical videographic statement I made, where I recontextualized different cinematic clips to make a larger point. It just came together well, from the disparate Robert De Niro threads and his underlying antagonism towards Trump. Kudos also to Greg Schultz for designed the thumbnail you see above.

FILMADRID and MUBI published this one in 2021, when we were all still reeling from the aftershocks of COVID but had enough distance from it that we could see how we got there; and hopefully laugh about it.

Sometimes, the process of making a work of art (in this case, video essay) just flows. Things come together, without a lot of hem or haw. This was not a tortured video essay to make, despite the torture we all went through globally to bring it to fruition. As I prepare for my trip to FILMADRID 2025 I wonder if wearing a mask is something I ought do. I’ve had COVID twice now, and it certainly is no fun; although neither is fogging up my glasses 24/7 and inhaling my own bad breath in perpetuity.

Self-isolation was hard, wasn’t it? I remember that period as being one of self-discovery. I was holed up in my apartment with my wife, my cat and my to-go cocktails. I had experience as a shut-in growing up, watching movies and TV a lot and not playing outside with other kids. So in a way, I was the ideal test tube baby for the pandemic, and yet it was still crazy-making. But for FILMADRID 2021, I opted to use the platform not to talk about films per se, but politics, a first! This is something I also do for FILMADRID 2025, so stay tuned for that!