In the spring of 2018, artist Maria Petschnig befriended Marc Thompson, who had been living in his car in Brooklyn for more than a year. Marc grew up in NYC, is a former convict, and his self-imposed homelessness has both psychological as well as economic reasons. Petschnig started to record his life and struggle, his thoughts and routines, over the course of a year. Uncomfortably Comfortable is an experimental video portrait that addresses the mounting NYC housing crisis, incarceration, trauma and racism, but also talks about friendship and life on the fringes of society.

Dir. Maria Petschnig - 72min - 2021 - USA, Austria

"When Marc Thompson speaks, his words roll off the tongue like poetry, their melodic and precise fluidity damningly conjuring the reality of racist victimisation. The force of nature that he is animates Maria Petschnig’s documentary, which juxtaposes Thompson’s daily rituals as an unhoused person in New York with his contemplation of his incarcerated past and the systemic obstacles that hamper his re-entry into society." - Guardian

"On the streets of New York...reflections on proximity, distance, and interpretation unfold" - Ethnocineca, Winner Austrian Documentary Award

"An experimental and poetic portrait that grants us a share of an autonomous sense of time and allows its protagonist to precisely regulate closeness and distance" - CineCollective