10th Anniversary of Video Essays

Over the past decade, the video essay has become a widely popular form for people to share their understanding of film, media and popular culture. The form is practiced by a wide variety of people of different backgrounds and interests, from professional filmmakers to amateurs; from obsessive movie fans to academic scholars. The form has radically changed the landscape of moving image culture, allowing a greater number of people to contribute to a collective appreciation of film and media. Kevin B. Lee, one of the most well-known and productive figures in this field, celebrates his 10th anniversary of making video essays by giving a personal tour through the last decade of video essay production. He will mark key works and moments of his own career alongside the major developments of the field.

Kevin B. Lee is a filmmaker and critic who has made over 350 video essays exploring film and media. His award-winning Transformers: The Premake was named one of the best documentaries of 2014 by Sight & Sound Magazine and played in several festivals including the Berlin Film Festival Critics Week. In 2017 he is the first-ever Artist in Residence of the Harun Farocki Institute in Berlin. He was Founding Editor and Chief Video Essayist at Fandor, supervising producer at Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies, and has written for The New York Times, Sight & Sound, Slate and Indiewire. He teaches film and media studies at universities such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Goethe Universitat Frankfurt.