The films of artist Amie Siegel (b. 1974) deftly transform heady philosophical musings—about history, psychoanalysis, voyeurism, modernist design, cinematic narrative—into elegantly playful and provocative mosaics of carefully loaded images and pointed associations. Empathy and DDR/DDR established Siegel as an important film essayist able to dethorn the prickly subjects she explores, from the power structure of classical psychoanalysis to the contested history of the former East Germany. The restrained self-reflexivity and deadpan humor that unite Siegel’s films lend them a rich meta-cinematic dimension that actively questions the limits of traditional nonfiction cinema. Ultimately, the “ciné-constellation” structures favored by Siegel invite the viewer to engage more intuitive forms of audio-visual thinking. A graduate of Bard and the Art Institute of Chicago, Siegel is a professor in Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.