wandering through secret storms (2009)

Images – derived from the Prelinger Archive – of people doing office work (mainly women), are mixed with lines from heavily redacted FBI files full of suspicious, paranoid notations. A story of patriarchal surveillance is suggested, but the soul of Battle’s film is elsewhere: in the strange, spooky glow that emanates from filing cabinets, or the animated birds that pass freely from one screen to another. An elegant arrangement of mysterious materials. – Adrian Martin