“Counting” is Jem Cohen’s wandering tribute to the filmmaker Chris Marker, who died in 2012, and is structured as an essay-film told in 15 chapters of varying lengths. Cohen shot the footage during trips to Russia and Istanbul, and while walking around New York City, where he currently lives (many Brooklyn residents will see familiar landmarks, but Cohen’s camera-eye captures details that go unnoticed). Through his camera he constructs a personal travelogue that also acts as a map of the political climate of the last few years. But the energy of the film derives less from single images than the movement or flow of images. “Counting” reproduces the human experience of walking down the street, of wonder and concern and hope for the future.

via Whitechapel Gallery and Blouin Artinfo