Christopher Aoun BVK, a Lebanese-born, European-based cinematographer, shot All That's Left of You (Sundance 2025 Premieres, dir. Cherien Dabis) with a formal decision that was actually a political one: using the same HAWK V-Lites 2x anamorphic lenses | Adorama [affiliate] across four distinct time periods spanning 74 years of Palestinian family history. This is not a technical choice. This is a cinematographic argument. The lens is the family's continuity. The anamorphic signature is the visual assertion of unbroken history.
The film travels across 1948, 1978, 1988, and 2022—four moments that encompass the major ruptures of modern Palestinian history. A conventional cinematographic approach might use different lenses or different color palettes to distinguish these time periods. Aoun chose the opposite: visual unity across historical division. That choice required absolute clarity about what the film was arguing. Dabis's film about a multigenerational Palestinian family needed a cinematographer who could understand that visual consistency was not neutral. It was a statement about continuity and resilience.
The HAWK V-Lites 2x anamorphics have a specific optical signature—a particular quality of depth, a specific rendering of color, a characteristic flare behavior. Aoun used these lenses across the entire 74-year span, which means every moment of the family's history is photographed through the same optical personality. The anamorphic texture connects 1948 to 2022. The lens becomes the metaphor: through all the historical rupture, there is visual continuity. The family persists.
This is the emerging DP's approach to formal cinematography: every technical choice is also a thematic choice. Aoun is building a reputation for understanding that the glass you choose, the format you work in, the way you compose—these are not neutral tools. They are arguments. The film about a Palestinian family across 74 years needed anamorphic continuity. That understanding came before the technical execution. Aoun knew what the lens meant before he used it.
For emerging cinematographers working with stories rooted in specific cultural and historical contexts, Aoun's approach is instructive. The cinematography is not separate from the film's themes. It is inseparable from them. Aoun did not photograph a Palestinian family story in anamorphic. Aoun used anamorphic to argue about what continuity means in the face of historical division. That distinction—between documenting a story and using cinematography to deepen a story's argument—is the work of emerging cinematographers who understand that form is content.
Aoun is building a career in the tradition of European art cinematography, but specifically engaged with Middle Eastern diasporic narratives. That combination—European technical precision and Middle Eastern subject matter—gives his work a specific weight and authority. The choice to use HAWK anamorphics across all four time periods, to unify history through optical continuity, suggests a cinematographer who understands his role as both visual craftsperson and thematic collaborator.
The IndieWire survey of Sundance 2025 cinematography specifically highlighted Aoun's decision to use the same lenses throughout as "unifying texture." That language—unifying—is significant. Aoun is not using different lenses for different time periods. He is using the same glass to assert that family history, despite rupture, maintains texture and continuity. That is the emerging DP's cinematography: form and meaning inseparable.
Aoun used the same lenses for 74 years of a Palestinian family's history. The lens is the family's continuity. That understanding comes before the technical execution.
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