“Afterlives” is a desktop documentary that critically engages with the historical and digital traces of extremist propaganda, questioning how images of violence circulate, mutate, and persist. The film moves between virtual investigations and real-world encounters with artists, activists, and researchers who seek to resist the toxic effects of such media. At its core is the figure of Medusa — a victim of violence whose gaze turned viewers to stone — invoked as a symbol of both the dangers and transformative potential of looking. From museum archives to AI-generated reconstructions, the film explores how power structures, spanning from the colonial past to the digital age, shape the way we see and remember violence.
Can we ever truly look without being complicit? And is there another way to care? – Kevin B. Lee
Kevin B. Lee
DE, FR, BE 2025
88 min | English, German | Desktop
Kevin B. Lee
Born in 1975. Studied film, video, new media, animation and visual critical studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 2022, he has been Professor of the Future of Cinema and the Audiovisual Arts at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival. AFTERLIVES is his feature film debut.
Films (selection)
Banana 2002 | Transformers: The Premake | Occupation 2016 | #movieofmylife 2017| Harun Farocki: The Counter-Image 2019 | Harun Farocki: Presented 2020 | Harun Farocki: Lexicon 2020 | Afterlives 2025
R+B: Kevin B. Lee | DOP: Ginan Seidl | E: Janina Herhoffer | S: Aline Bonvin | SD: Laszlo Umbreit | M: Tadklimp, Maya Shenfeld | P: Caroline Kirberg | D: Arsenal | WS: pong film | With Kevin B. Lee, Morehshin Allahyari, Nava Zarabian, Anne Speckhard