Watching the world premiere of My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow last September in the Main Slate of the 62nd New York Film Festival, I knew I was experiencing a milestone in vérité documentary filmmaking.

Not because My Undesirable Friends was filmed using an iPhone per se. Filming with iPhones is a commonplace now, from this summer’s Danny Boyle hit, 28 Years Later, to Aardman’s latest Wallace & Gromit animation. Last April’s NAB show delivered booths full of iPhone cages, gimbals, adapters, and power banks. Apple’s popular “Shot on iPhone” campaign has been running since 2015.

Rather, My Undesirable Friends is a landmark work because techniques and methods latent in the iPhone’s size and its means of video capture have been developed and applied consistently

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