Heads
2025 · 8m · USA
Directed by Ben Berman
Genres: animation, documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, surreal, whimsical
A documentary portrait of NYC-based sculptor Jack Cox, who creates cartoonish three-dimensional caricatures inspired by distinctive faces he observes on city streets. The film literally brings his sculpted heads to life through animation, blending dark humor with existential reflection on imperfection and creative anxiety.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Sculpted heads literally talk in a meta talking-heads doc, with David Byrne granting song clearance for the joke. The level of commitment to a bit is admirable. Briefly delightful.
Berman animates Cox's sculpted caricatures while making the meta-joke explicit with a Talking Heads song clearance — the wit is genuine, and the documentary-as-performance structure is exactly Berman's signature mode after the Amazing Johnathan film. Programmable.
Ben Berman directing, 8:07, and the OG line "sculpted heads animated to speak" is a clean self-referential gag — making a doc about a sculptor of caricatured heads literalize the "talking heads" format is the kind of pun-built-into-form choice that justifies the runtime. Color, sound, score credits are tight.
Reviews
Heads brings sculptor Cox's caricature-like sculpted heads to life, quite literally — a film about two artists working through their own anxieties on screen, a delicate dance that pays off.
Dark humor is definitely Berman's instinct, and existential dread is never far behind — the work features animated sequences bringing Cox's sculptural heads to life within a surreal, jump-cut aesthetic reflecting urban anxiety and creative introspection.
Festivals
- Sundance Film Festival 2025