Readers

Unlike smoking a cigarette, reading a book isn’t among those things that are generally regarded as a part of social communication. In the ideal case, reading can rather become an oblivious act, and this is precisely where the great American documentary filmmaker James Benning struck gold in his most recent film. Readers observes four people, three women of different ages and a man, while they are reading. Every take lasts 27 minutes, filmed as a medium shot and in central perspective. Except for an insert at the end of each episode, featuring the title of the book and a quotation from it, there is no further information. (Viennale)