BRITDOC's Luke Moody questions the power of words on screen in recent documentary journalism. Long and short form documentary film, informed by deep journalism, is encountering a formal challenge. As filmmakers and editors strive to make poetry of complex information, they increasingly find creative anchoring in journalism’s most comfortable medium: the written word. Looking… Continue reading The silent return of the voice of God in documentary
Have the strongest people always dominated everywhere? We look into Patricio Guzmán’s new film The Pearl Button, ahead of its UK release this week. “I’d love for these water people not to have disappeared.” Patricio Guzmán, The Pearl Button Chilean documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzmán was held in solitary confinement in Santiago’s National Stadium and… Continue reading Patricio Guzmán on The Pearl Button
Revealing creative dialogues in nonfiction films, a playful act between filmmaker and subject as early as 1950, are evidence that documentary filmmaking is the art of collaborative conceit. Last June Robert Greene’s Actress and Måns Månsson’s Stranded in Canton had their UK premieres at London’s blossoming Open City Documentary Festival. Both films use models… Continue reading Making it real together
The master director of films on women’s rights talks to us about her picture based on Brenda Myers-Powell and the girls on the street corners of Chicago. Documentarian Kim Longinotto returns this year with a film about prostitution. Perhaps, an obvious and depressing subject about sex victims wouldn’t appeal to many people at first.… Continue reading Kim Longinotto on Dreamcatcher
Continuing its reputation as the biggest international documentary film festival in UK, the 21st Sheffield Doc/Fest welcomed documentarians and activists from the public domain with a fierce independent spirit this year. The past is always with us. But who wants to live in an antique shop? - Ian McShane in How We Used To Live… Continue reading Independent spirit: 21st Sheffield Doc/Fest
Coinciding with the events in Thessaloniki as the European Youth Capital, the screens in the northern Greek city wrote ethics, truth and literacy on the wall. Peter Wintonick once wrote: "We should attempt to pour our work and activism into the forge of human service. Let us become our own masters, re-appropriate our media away… Continue reading Archipelago connected: 16th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
As Leviathan hits London cinemas this month, Luke Moody compiles a list of animal features and talks about the endoscopic camera eye in the new nature documentary. I’ve never worked a wave beaten shift on a night time fishing trawler in the North Atlantic. I will never become a motor-powered boat nor squirm like… Continue reading Animal features: new nature documentary
On the release of Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing in UK cinemas, some excitement is emerging about the possibilities of new hybrid forms of documentary. "All great fiction films tend towards documentary, just as all great documentaries tend toward fiction.” Jean-Luc Godard Aside from this admiration, the film has provoked reactions of both… Continue reading Act normal: hybrid tendencies in documentary film
