LIGHT NEEDS is an experimental documentary about houseplants who cohabitate with people and the surprisingly intimate and complex relationships that can develop between them. Containing footage collected from many different domestic and professional spaces over several years, each home/site evidences the different ways people cohabitate with and relate to plants. Yet, this film is ardently not a document of houseplants but rather a consideration of the benefits and losses accrued through the social contracts between plant and animal. By directly attending to the relationships humans have with nonhumans, Light Needs looks to shine a light on the responsibility for care towards other living beings.

-- Dir. Jesse Mclean - 74 min - 2023 - USA --

"Light Needs is immaculately filmed with lenses that capture the finest textures on every organism’s surface, be it skin or leaf. A thoughtful electronic score adds a playful touch throughout, and this works as a coherent film despite its fragmentary parts. Immaculate" - Guardian

"a generous, thought-provoking and artistically inventive film that literally expands one’s consciousness and creates a space for empathy with other life forms – namely the houseplants that most of us live with" - CPH:DOX

"sublime insight into the secret life of plants, those who care for them and the special relationship they share. It is a film packed with love, humour and a sensuous attention to detail" - Business Doc Europe

"a multifaceted inquiry into the consciousness of plants; by taking us on a journey into the many forms and methods of plant care and ownership, the film arrives not at a new discovery or revelation of, but at a refreshingly lucid argument for, the unknowability of plant life" - Little White Lies