Film industry and review website IndieWire has selected Users, the latest documentary by Mexican-American director Natalia Almada, in its list of ‘Ten Best Undistributed Films of 2021.’ In his description of the film, IndieWire’s film critic describes it as a “dazzling and ruminative documentary essay”, and as a “hypnotic, visually-driven work in the tradition of Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi.”
Users had its world premiere on January in the official competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Directing Award U.S. Documentary, becoming the second time that the MacArthur “Genius” Award winner received the prize, after winning it in 2009 for her film El General.
With technology increasingly driving all aspects of our society, we are moving quickly toward becoming a “technopoly." Using a visual essay documentary form, Users explores the unintended and often dehumanizing consequences of our society's embedded belief that technological progress will lead to the betterment of humanity. Is technological progress inevitable? Are we all increasingly isolated? Do we really have agency to direct its course? Is technology an expression of our humanity or is technology destroying our humanity? The film is a critical and reflective meditation on these questions, using cinematic language that evokes the body and nature to counter the myth of technological progress.
Almada’s work straddles the boundaries of documentary, fiction, and experimental film. Her previous film Everything Else is a narrative feature starring Academy Award-nominated Adriana Barraza that premiered at the New York Film Festival and was nominated for a Mexican Academy Award. El Velador premiered at the 2011 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and broadcast on the award-winning PBS program POV, along with her other two feature documentaries Al otro lado and El General.
