The Pain of Others (2018)

The Pain of Others is a YouTube compilation film about Morgellons, a mysterious illness whose sufferers say they have parasites under the skin, long colored fibers emerging from lesions, and a host of other bizarre symptoms which sound borrowed from a horror film. Intimate and unflinching, disturbing and at times funny – The Pain of Others attempts an act of radical empathy.  Available at Vimeo on Demand. 

International Film Festival Rotterdam • BAMcinemaFest • Sheffield Doc/Fest • SF DocFest • Sarasota Film Festival • Maryland Film Festival • BAFICI • Open City Film Festival • The Museum of the Moving Image

“Watching the Pain of Others“, a response film made by Chloé Galibert-Laîné, called “one of the best films ever made about watching a documentary” by David Schwartz (Chief Curator at the Museum of the Moving Image). Chloe’s film was also named one of Sight and Sound’s “Best Video Essays of the Year,” and was published by the peer-reviewed journal [in]Transition. It’s completely amazing!!!

“Genuinely harrowing.”  –Glenn Kenny, The New York Times

“[A] parasitic psychosomatic YouTube mixtape.” –Tara Judah, Senses of Cinema

“The abysses of agony into which all three women are plunged are matched by the seeming absurdity, even occasional moments of comedy, that emerge from these women’s frenzied pursuit of relief from their torments, and this contrast provokes the movie’s most agonized paradoxes.” –Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“The found-footage, experimental doc, which despite being compiled of YouTube videos and newsreels, feels dense enough to require a dissertation on delusion, suffering and this digital age.” –Kiva Reardon, Filmmaker Magazine

“Lane’s perfectly titled ‘body-horror doc’ acts as a challenging and thought-provoking sociological study.” –Lauren Wissot, (and Filmmaker Magazine)

“[The] film might be as much about the viewer as the subject.” –Peter Keough, The Boston Globe

Interview with Dan Schoenbrun and Penny Lane, IndieWIRE

“[P]rovocative and mordantly funny at times, it’s the latest Molotov cocktail from one of the boldest nonfiction filmmakers working today.” –Stephen Saito, MoveableFest