In this kinetic journey through New York City in the ten days leading up to the 2020 presidential election, filmmaker D.W. Young speaks with a diverse group of artists about their work and creative lives in this fraught moment.

DIARY OF A COUNTDOWN features conversations with dancer Mark Morris, writer/illustrator Maira Kalman, street photographer Andre Wagner, playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, Chinatown muralist Peach Tao and many more. An alternate record of this hypercharged collision of pandemic and politics, the film is a meditation on time and place, a poetic snapshot of a city on edge, and a collective portrait of the artists who call it home.