An ambitious experiment in nonfiction filmmaking, Passersby captures the diverse, intersecting daily lives of Los Angeles residents. Influenced by films ranging from the ‘city symphonies’, a popular style of urban documentaries from the 1920s, to the director Richard Linklater’s comedy Slacker (1990), the directors Sue Ding and Sarah Garrahan explored their city by visiting randomly selected areas and profiling subjects they ‘spontaneously met’ along the way. The resulting project features fleeting glimpses into the public and private lives of a clothing-store worker who moonlights as a restaurant crooner, a Gen Z student trying to perfect his TikTok dance moves, a family seeking fun at an amusement park, and others.
These individual brushstrokes ultimately form a rich portrait of the city’s contours, communities and culture, emerging from the people who inhabit it. Directed by Jimmy Ferguson and Catherine Gubernick Directed by Richard Kane and Dillon Bustin Whether you are a newcomer or you’ve lived there for years, learn to look closer and deepen your connection
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