Project Detail

Unseen: The Lives of Looking

Synopsis

’Unseen: The Lives of Looking’ focuses on four individuals with a distinct relationship to looking - an eye surgeon, a planetary explorer, a human rights lawyer and an artist/filmmaker. Told through Dryden Goodwin’s closely observed drawings, camera work and multilayered soundtrack, it explores different scales, forms and reasons for looking, in a poetic and metaphysically charged journey. Revealing the empathy and dexterity of an eye surgeon, working with the fragile human eye; the quest of a NASA planetary explorer to decode the cosmos and find evidence of life on Mars; and the scrutiny of the British government, by a human rights lawyer, in extraordinary rendition, drone attack and mass surveillance cases. The film’s perspectives range from minute details to panoramic expanses, building an atmospheric and sensual matrix around its subjects. Goodwin includes fleeting vignettes of strangers and a brief focus on his father and son, highlighting the tension in his work between intimacy and anonymity. The film considers both the physical act of looking and how we perceive the world around us: how we contemplate the known and the unknown, the personal and the remote and the imaginative leaps taken to reveal what might be concealed or out of sight.

Details

Year
2015
Type of project
Features
Running time
90 mins
Format
4K video
Director
Dryden Goodwin 1st Feature
Producer
Jo Cole, Sarah Caddy
Co-Producer
Dryden Goodwin Projects, Red Bee Media
Executive Producer
Gareth Evans
Editor
Dryden Goodwin, Jo Cole
Screenwriter
Dryden Goodwin
Director of Photography
Dryden Goodwin
Sound
Dryden Goodwin
Composer
Dryden Goodwin
Principal cast
Prof Sir Peng Tee Khaw, Prof Sanjeev Gupta, Rosa Curling, Jeffrey Goodwin, Fynn Cole-Goodwin
Researchers
Jo Cole, Imran Perretta
Production managers
Harriet Masterson, Sukey Richardson
Production, Camera and Sound Assistants
Brada Barassi, Imran Perretta
Sound Mastering
Tony Perretta
Production Lawyer
Guy Swillingham
Production accountants
Perlin Franco Ltd
Funded by
Royal Museums Greenwich, Arts Council England, Wellcome Trust, Red Bee Media

Production Status

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