Film Forum

An immersive, amusing, and moving journey through 32 soundscapes by filmmaker Sam Green (THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, A THOUSAND THOUGHTS) in collaboration with electronic musician JD Samson. Green samples sounds inside the womb, the mating call of a now-extinct bird, the audio effects created by a Hollywood Foley artist, the hush of snow falling in Japan, and John Cage’s famed piece, “4:33.” Experimental musician Annea Lockwood (her Piano Burning performance captured the sounds of a piano on fire) suggests — as she records “wild” sounds from a marsh — that we should be listening with the environment, rather than to it. A freewheeling exploration of how sound shapes and moves us, the film is “full to bursting with humor, emotion and curiosity...a uniquely mind-expanding plunge into a dimension of the human experience so many of us take for granted, a rare and rewarding sonic journey.” – Peter Debruge, Variety

Note: Headphones provided at select shows. 

With support from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund

2022     98 MIN.     USA     ABRAMORAMA
 
 

Reviews

“A relentlessly curious documentary”
– Lindsay Zoladz, The New York Times
 
“Sam Green’s 32 SOUNDS is a playful, thoughtful documentary… a delightful, joyous film that changes the way you look at — or maybe listen to — the world”
– Alissa Wilkinson, Vox

“Touches on sense memory…and it dares to tackle the question: If a tree falls in the woods, does it really make a sound?... probably the only movie to ever turn a Moho braccatus’s mating call into something that could move you to tears.”
– David Fear, Rolling Stone

Trailer