Special Report: Kimi Takesue: Crossings and Encounters

About this episode

Mike interviews filmmaker Kimi Takesue about her diverse body of work and the influences of her cross-cultural upbringing.

Mike talks with filmmaker Kimi Takesue, whose work — spanning documentary, fiction, and experimental forms — is now collected on the Criterion Channel. Takesue grew up shuttling between Honolulu and Massachusetts, and that cross-cultural, biracial upbringing informs every frame she has made, from early shorts rooted in identity politics to acclaimed features documenting cross-cultural encounters in Uganda, Laos, and Hawaiʻi. Her films, including Where Are You Taking Me?, 95 and 6 to Go, and Onlookers, examine those encounters through an observational lens, tracing the power dynamics and unspoken tensions that emerge when tourists and locals share the same unequal terrain. Takesue discusses her practice of traveling without research or agenda, letting one thing unfold into the next, and how a devastating failed fiction project directly led to the making of Where Are You Taking Me? She also talks about the rhythm and formalism of Onlookers, the tension between aestheticizing beauty and critiquing the tourist gaze, the influences she only fully embraced later in her career, and her current work-in-progress following tour guides at Cambodian atrocity sites. Become a supporter of this…

People in this episode

Host: Mike

Guest: Kimi Takesue

Topics covered

• filmmaking
• cross-cultural encounters
• documentary
• identity politics
• tourism critique

Keywords

• Kimi Takesue
• Criterion Channel
• documentary
• cross-cultural
• tourism
• identity politics
• Onlookers

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Criterion Channel

Books & works: Where Are You Taking Me?, 95 and 6 to Go, Onlookers

Places: Honolulu, Massachusetts, Uganda, Laos, Hawaiʻi, Cambodian atrocity sites

More episodes of The Projection Booth

• Episode 814: Tombstone (1993) · September 9, 2026 · 1h 59m
• Special Report: By Hook or By Crook (2001) · September 8, 2026 · 20 min
• Special Report: Penny Lane is Dead (2026) · September 7, 2026 · 21 min
• Special Report: Splash City (2026) · September 5, 2026 · 16 min
• Special Report: Teenage Wasteland (2025) · September 5, 2026 · 29 min
• Special Report: Music Editor Ben Schor · August 28, 2026 · 36 min