How Little We Know of Our Neighbours

2005

49min

How Little We Know of Our Neighbours is an experimental documentary about Britain's Mass Observation Movement. At its centre is a look at the multiple roles cameras have played in public space, starting in the 1880s when the first hand-held camera brought photography out of the studio and onto the street. The film looks at Mass Observation and its relationship to contemporary phenomena, from police surveillance to webcams to reality television, pointing to ways in which our notions of privacy and self-definition have changed.