[CFF ’22] ‘Self-Portrait’ Review — Surveillance doc finds beauty in the mundane

Medium
by Eric Langberg

Joële Walinga’s new documentary Self-Portrait opens with a title card reading, “This film is made of real moments captured globally through unlocked surveillance cameras.” What follows is an assemblage of footage that the filmmaker collected online from security cameras and webcams left open to the Internet, whether by design or technical incompetence, and what emerges is what Walinga calls an “incidental” portrait of a world that is ever more aware of itself, watching itself always.

Read full review.