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In this deeply intimate and haunting documentary, acclaimed filmmaker Alan Berliner posthumously collaborates with his friend and colleague, experimental New York City filmmaker Benita Raphan, who died by suicide during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Drawing from Benita’s personal archive – films, notebooks, drawings, photographs, home movies, and over 40 hard drives – Berliner weaves a portrait of an artist’s life marked by brilliance, whimsy, and existential struggle.
BENITA is part exploration of creativity and mental health, part meditation on isolation, and part portrait of a filmmaker by a filmmaker. Berliner uncovers revelations within Benita’s work that illuminate both her life and the universal tensions between innovation and vulnerability. The film is an unflinching, lyrical, and ultimately moving study of an artist’s mind, offering profound insights into the intersections of creativity, loneliness and human resilience.