Docs Ireland: Afterlives

In his first feature-length desktop documentary for cinema, filmmaker Kevin B. Lee delves into the historical traces of extremist propaganda and the efforts of those resisting its violent impacts. ‘Afterlives’ explores how to confront the violence encoded in this media, reaching beyond its toxic effects to engage power structures spanning from the colonial past to the digital age. Moving between virtual and physical environments, the film encounters an artist, an activist and a researcher, who each use the legacy of violent extremism to create new images and narratives with new possibilities for the future.

Lee was one of the innovators of online essay films in the years before creeping advertising. Films like Transformers – The Premake influenced many a bedroom filmmaker. His first feature continues to use new digital technologies to express new things about cultural life in the modern age.