Why does the uniquely cinematic language of film editing work? In real life we don’t instantly jump from one viewpoint to another. Such a bizarre disruption would be nauseatingly jarring. And yet, film viewers effortlessly understand, and don’t even notice, most edits. This has led to the suspicion that film editing exploits some universal features of human perception – that a well-edited film is an illusion that mirrors our window upon the world.

Film editor Walter Murch, scholar David Bordwell and a handful of eminent psychologists present this compelling portrait of the profound “naturalness” of film editing. But in the remote mountains of Turkey, a budding researcher – alongside a group of people who have never seen films – puts this deepest of cinematic ideas to the test.