John Wilson, the creator of the cult-beloved HBO series How To with John Wilson, has returned with his first film: a documentary about how to sell a documentary about concrete.

Wilson built his reputation over three seasons of the series, armed with his ever-present camera and diffident, memoiristic narration. He explored New York's disintegrating streets with a singular eye for the weird and the unintentionally hilarious, turning the most mundane of the city's preoccupations — public restrooms, parking spots, scaffolding — into what critics have called profound meditations on the glories, indignities and absurdities of modern life.

His new work arrives as his profile in the city is rising. Zohran Mamdani, as mayor of New York City, has frequently demonstrated impressive media savvy, but arguably nothing has proved his gift for in-the-know promotion more than a video released in April that he made with Wilson.

The spot supported the mayor's plan to reduce the presence of the city's ubiquitous sidewalk sheds. Its existence suggested that either Mamdani or someone on his team was a fan of How To with John Wilson, the series that remains a taste signifier for alt-humorous New Yorkers.

Wilson has hinted at the strange pull of his method. "There might be a kind of sickness in shooting things this way," he said in remarks accompanying the film's release.

The move from television to a first feature-length film marks a new chapter for a film-maker whose portrait of the city — its disintegrating streets, its scaffolding, its sheds — has become inseparable from how a devoted audience sees New York itself.