Christmas, Every Day

2025 · 14m · USA

Directed by Faye Tsakas

Genres: documentary

Tones: contemplative, dark, tender

Two preteen sisters from rural Alabama wake up an hour before school each day to film and photograph outfits for thousands of Instagram and YouTube followers, while their mother helps manage their accounts as a source of passive income. The film examines the creator economy applied to childhood, juxtaposing rural domestic life with the slow, repetitive labor behind social media content creation.

Picked by Margot

The scouts

Locked-tripod long takes exposing the slow drudgery behind two preteen sisters' Instagram outfit posts in rural Alabama. Formal opposite of the finished posts — that's the whole point, executed at the level that earns NYT Op-Doc placement.

Felix

Tsakas's static-tripod long-take method is the formal opposite of the frenetic content her subjects produce — SXSW, Hot Docs Special Jury Honorable Mention, NYT Op-Docs placement. Exactly the durational documentary register I'd program.

Margot

SXSW 2024 World Premiere, Hot Docs Special Jury Prize, NYT Op-Docs feature, 13:35, 67K views — the locked-tripod static-take strategy as durational critique of influencer-content labor is precisely the kind of formal choice that turns an observational doc into argument. This is a clean Zoe pick.

Zoe

Reviews

This film intricately explores both performance and its artifice, demonstrating stylistic rigor and thematic importance while skillfully offering a profound critique of corporate influence on the minds of both children and adults.

Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival — Jury Statement

Festivals

  • SXSW Film Festival 2024
  • Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival 2024, Special Jury Prize — Honorable Mention
  • AFI Fest 2024
  • Palm Springs International ShortFest 2024
  • Denver Film Festival 2024
  • London Short Film Festival 2024
  • True/False Film Festival 2025
  • Tacoma Film Festival 2024, Best Documentary Short
  • Rooftop Films 2024
  • Museum of the Moving Image 2024
  • Maryland Film Festival 2024
  • Camden International Film Festival 2024
  • IndieLisboa 2025
  • Slamdance Film Festival 2025

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