Unseen Skies

Yaara Bou Melhem 2021

“Unseen Skies” follows artist Trevor Paglen’s decade-long journey to launch an artwork into space. Yaara Bou Melhem, an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, captures Paglen’s intercontinental trek to deploy a 30-meter mirrored balloon visible from Earth. Paglen’s conceptual art exposes the hidden power-structures of technology and surveillance that shape our lives. The film unveils his unprecedented undertaking and explores the global impact of technology on privacy. “Unseen Skies” reveals a reality that remains largely unseen and undetected: our skies are more than the exclusive playground of the military-industrial complex. Or are they?

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Running Time:

98 min.

Spoken Languages:

English

Subtitles:

English

Directors:

Yaara Bou Melhem

Producers:

Yaara Bou Melhem, Ivan O'Mahoney

Cinematographers:

Tom Bannigan

Editors:

Francisco Forbes

Production Companies:

In Films, Participant

Press

ARTnews

"His point is to expose the mechanisms of state surveillance, showing how seamlessly integrated into our daily lives they are."

Alex Greenberger
The Globe and Mail

"Nowadays those landscapes are dotted with drone airfields and black ops sites, surrounded by barbed wire and twitchy guards."

Chris Knight
POV Magazine

Unseen Skies tackles AI to remind viewers that looking is an inherently subjective act. Paglen unpacks the problematic dynamics of power and control embedded with A.I logic. The film offers an inquiry that’s sometimes confusing, but consistently provocative.

Pat Mullen

Festival Participation

San Francisco International Film Festival - 2021
Golden Gate Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature
Sydney Film Festival - 2021
Best Australian Documentary Nominee
CPH:DOX - 2022
Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards - 2022
Best Sound in a Documentary Nominee
Millennium Docs Against Gravity - 2022
Canon Award for Best Cinematography Nominee
Docaviv - 2022

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