Memory

Uploading videos of ourselves to the Internet is now second nature. Footage of life’s most meaningful milestones—or just ordering coffee—is instantly available for anyone to see. But what if our stories were no longer under our control? Filmmaker Dean Fleischer-Camp crafts a cautionary tale of our desire to be seen and the potent influence of those who watch. While on YouTube, Fleischer-Camp discovers a trove of over 100 hours of video shot by an unknown working-class man of his wife and kids between 2008 and 2015. Through a stranger’s gaze, their playground antics and banal trips to the mall are transformed into a completely unexpected narrative. What emerges is not only a provocative commentary on the illusory nature of editing, but a hallmark found-footage film for the Internet age. Masterfully constructed, Fraud plucks at the palpable tension between the American dream and American reality.