It was the first day on my new editing gig: a feature documentary about abuse, directed by Amy J. Berg. The AE had delivered the hard drive, the project set up to my requested specifications. I began opening bins and scrubbing through footage, and very shortly ran headlong into very disturbing material: a character roaming around streaked with blood; a series of photos showing the antagonist pretending to stab the protagonist over and over; audio of a woman being beaten and screaming. Caught off-guard, I felt a very old panic rising in my chest, that same terror I used to feel right before a
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“Really… I feel reluctant… coming to receive you… as my interviewers or crew… Because ever since my exposure to the camera…. As an internationally acclaimed poet… nothing much has come my way… Despite repeated interviews and exposure to the camera… So, in other words… I’ve become allergic to the camera!” Harrison Cudjoe enters the frame of the 1997 documentary YCP 1997 with these words, which have resonated with Indian documentary filmmakers, Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar. Over nearly three decades of documentary filmmaking, they—like scores of filmmakers who spend months and sometimes
IDA has announced grants, totaling $75,000, to three vérité short documentaries from Bhutan, Colombia and the United States through its IDA+XRM Media Incubator. The Incubator supports short vérité documentary films from around the globe, with an emphasis on emerging filmmakers and new perspectives.
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Sian-Pierre Regis’ Duty Free is the story of the filmmaker teaming up with his 75-year-old mother, Rebecca, to take the trip of a lifetime—checking things off Rebecca’s bucket list of adventures. Join them on their journey as they take us on a fun ride but also remind us of the terrible ways in which the State and the society view elders and do very little for their upkeep and wellness. Watch the film, now streaming on PBS’ Independent Lens. Did you know that in 1992, at the
Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! Cinematographer-Director Joan Churchill recently received DOC NYC’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Deadline’s Matthew Carey spoke to Churchill about her career. "With her, the camera is a character," observes her husband and frequent cinematic collaborator, the sound recordist Alan Barker. "It’s a part of the action, and she relates to the people she’s filming while she
In July 2021, Mexican "fixer" Miguel Angel Vega was approached by a European television channel. It was the same type of request he was used to receiving: "We heard this town is really dangerous right now. Can you take us there?" Behind most big television segments on Mexico’s cartels, there is normally someone like Vega. For a decade, he’s been fielding requests from broadcasters, newspapers and magazines looking to tell definitive stories about Mexico’s war on drugs and organized crime. He takes foreign journalists to where the action is, arranges safe transportation and accommodation, finds
By KRISTAL SOTOMAYOR and HANSEN BURSIC Strong, meaningful allyship is one of the most powerful tools we have to change our industry for the better. Over the last few months, an important discussion has been brought back into the mainstream about what industry leaders and filmmakers can do to support Trans folks. Additionally, several of the Disclosure Trans Industry Toolkits have been made available at discounted rates. IDA has partnered on the toolkits to provide feedback. Following last week's Sundance Collab, GLAAD, and IDA panel on the tool kits and being that it's Trans Awareness Week, we
By KRISTAL SOTOMAYOR and HANSEN BURSIC Strong, meaningful allyship is one of the most powerful tools we have to change our industry for the better. Over the last few months, an important discussion has been brought back into the mainstream about what industry leaders and filmmakers can do to support Trans folks. Additionally, several of the Disclosure Trans Industry Toolkits have been made available at discounted rates. IDA has partnered on the toolkits to provide feedback. Following last week's Sundance Collab, GLAAD, and IDA panel on the tool kits and being that it's Trans Awareness Week, we
Watching Payal Kapadia’s A Night of Knowing Nothing has been nothing less than transformative. Not because it compels one to think beyond the realms of everyday but because in the everyday mundane lies the “life-altering.” The film is based on love letters written almost like a soliloquy by a young woman, identified as “L,” to her estranged partner, “K,” whose elusive presence is felt throughout the 97-minute film and yet feels like sand slipping away. At first, one grapples with the improbability of L’s deep longing. One ponders if this urgent longing, loss, and vaguely postmortem sutures of
Katsitsionni Fox is an artist, filmmaker and educator. She is Bear Clan from the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne. Her debut film was the award-winning Ohero:kon—Under the Husk, a 26-minute documentary that follows the journey of two Mohawk girls as they take part in traditional passage rites to becoming Mohawk women. This film received funding from Vision Maker Media and has been broadcast on many PBS stations since 2017. Her most recent film is the award-winning Without a Whisper—Konnón:kwe, the untold story of how Indigenous women influenced the early suffragists in their fight for freedom and