“The Art of Catastrophe” is an intimate vérité documentary about a family trying to find a way through the COVID-19 lockdown.
Filmed entirely on a single iPhone, the film follows Jeffrey, Maria, and their two young daughters as the ordinary rituals of family life—cooking, playing, teaching, creating, arguing, and comforting one another—take on new urgency. Each family member reaches for a different way of responding to fear and uncertainty, searching for a philosophy that might help them endure what none of them can control.
Drawn from nearly 200 hours of personal footage, “The Art of Catastrophe” is a deeply emotional portrait of family life under pressure—and of the imperfect ways people try to make meaning, preserve connection, and care for one another during a catastrophe.
Selected for future preservation by the Monmouth County Historical Society in Freehold, New Jersey.
