Camden International Film Festival

"Through a masterful interplay of intimate memory, archival material and evocative 16mm imagery, this film weaves the personal into the political, revealing the subtle yet profound ways ideology permeates everyday life. Its nuanced approach transforms recollections of family, childhood and the natural world into a lens on identity, care and cultural complicity, offering insight into the structures that shape how we live, think and relate. With resonant formal choices, meticulous research and a deeply personal perspective, this essay documentary turns evidence into reflection, offering clarity, urgency and insight."

"A breathtaking and deeply cinematic portrait of a boy and his family living in a small village in Hunan Province, expressing himself through poetry against the backdrop of both repression and abandonment. The poetry of the boy and his classmates emerges as a testament to the radical and still fleeting role that art and personal expression can play in the life of a child living under some of the most difficult of circumstances, to make sense of and to speak back to the world around him."

"By decoding images, Their Eyes examines the invisible human labor behind modern technology," jurors Enrique Pedráza Botero, Jeff Seelbach and Danielle Varga wrote. "The jury was transfixed by its expansive and deliberate approach, and its distressing implications for the future."