Just because you cannot see something does not mean it is not there. In fact, it may be all around you, all around the world. It may even see you, be watching you.

UNSEEN SKIES is a portrait of American photographer, geographer, and, above all, provocateur Trevor Paglen, who "makes art of government secrets." His work questions the accuracy and ethics of technologies – AI, surveillance, satellites, etc. – used by governments, militaries, /Big Tech. He has dedicated his existence to photographing and thereby exposing satellites of all kinds – military, communication, weather, reconnaissance, etc. He's a likable cowboy-hat-wearing guy who sits outside while others discuss his work at gallery openings. He traverses the globe to investigate the intrusive mismanagement of the shared resource of outer space. "The occupation of the sky," Paglen calls it.

Director Yaara Bou Melhem follows Paglen for several years, always close by, as he works on his project "Orbital Reflector," whose goal was to launch a reflective satellite into Earth's orbit. The reflection would make it visible from Earth with the naked eye, unlike the thousands of others above our heads at this very moment. In his own words: "It's a project about public space, and a project about who gets to exercise power over our planetary commons, and on what terms."

Unseen Skies is a well-crafted collaboration between filmmaker and subject, and thus the film achieves the artist's goal: to make the invisible visible. It is an artistic investigation and cinematic resistance to the unchecked militarization and weaponization of the cosmos. As the world shut down at the outbreak of COVID-19, Paglen began to question the purpose of his work. The intensity of our day, he says, is greater than can be expressed or reckoned with through artwork. Making art may seem impractical, even pointless, when the entirety of the world is under such burden. And yet, what else are artists to do?