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. Writing for Filmmaker, Denae Peters interviews Brown Girls Doc Mafia Founder Iyabo Boyd about the imperative to hire BIPOC filmmakers within the documentary community. One of the many roots of the problem is the lack of professional and personal friendships that White people have with people of color. In film, people work with their friends, so if you don't have any friends who are
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Documentaries aren’t solely about issues. “One problem filmmakers come across is, ‘Here’s an issue I care about. I’m going to talk to a bunch of people about this issue and put it all together,’” says Lauren Mucciolo, a documentarian who is professor of practice and executive producer of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School Journalism and Mass Communication. “I think that’s a problem. Great films are made in the storytelling.” Gang violence in Honduras, or the opioid epidemic in New England, or the fact that in America your family
By Sheila Curran Bernard and Kenn Rabin Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from the second edition of Bernard and Rabin’s Archival Storytelling: A Filmmaker’s Guide to Finding, Using, and Licensing Third-Party Visuals and Music , published by Focal Press in May 2020. Wonderful news: On January 1, 2020, after a period of 20 years—during which copyright expirations were frozen—a treasure trove of materials copyrighted in the United States in 1924 finally entered the public domain. The delay was due to the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, which took effect on January 1, 1999. In it, US
When was the last time you picked up a book—a historical survey on documentary film, to be more exact—and discovered a page-turner? My guess is, you never have—and neither had I until I read Screening Reality: How Documentary Filmmakers Reimagined America. Just released by Bloomsbury, a publishing house known as much for its best sellers as for its respectable catalogue of academic books in the humanities, social sciences and visual arts, Screening Reality is being touted as the first, comprehensive history of American documentary film. If this is indeed the case, there is no one better
Vetting—the process of reviewing scripts and footage to address legal concerns prior to a documentary film’s release—generally occurs at (or toward) the end of a project. And while vetting is a necessary and important step, many legal issues can be identified and addressed much earlier in the filmmaking process. Indeed, for many independent documentarians, working with an attorney during the development and production of a film is invaluable. For example, an attorney can help a documentarian obtain access to key documents, footage and court filings. An attorney can also provide advice about
As we continue to process and reflect and figure out the way forward, we offer, in this Screen Time, a collection of both documentary work and discussions that serve to contextualize and underscore what we’ve been experiencing. The second edition of Firelight Media's new Beyond Resilience series, happening June 12 at 7:00 pm, will address "Production During Crisis: Ethics, Care, and Imagination," exploring how docmakers fulfill their role in the midst of a pandemic and an uprising—taking into consideration new creative approaches and ethical considerations. Carrie Lozano, IDA's Enterprise Fund
By Steven Beer, Neil Rosini & Julie Angell How can geoblocking impact the video-on-demand marketplace? Geoblocking technology restricts access to internet content based upon the user’s geographical location. International film distribution companies rely on geoblocking as the foundation to their core business model—pre-selling and licensing premium video-on-demand (VOD) content on a territorial basis. Copyright law, which grants rights holders with authority to designate the locations where their property is distributed, is also served by geoblocking. Netflix, HBO and numerous other VOD
Apple TV+ recently premiered Home, a new docuseries about nine of the world’s most innovative abodes. The series was set to debut at SXSW in March, but due to COVID-19 the show never made it to Austin. That said, the city is featured in one Home episode called “Edgeland House.” Chicago (“Listening House”), Malibu (“Xanadu”) and coastal Maine (“Soot House”) also make appearances on the show. In addition to the US, Bali (“Sharma Springs”), China (“Domestic Transformer”), India (“Wall House”), Mexico (“The 3D Printed Home”) and Sweden (“Naturhus”) are highlighted in the series. Two of the series’
Since March, filmmaker Juhi Sharma has been grounded in Chennai, India, where she's been working remotely on the post-production of The Vinyl Records: Destroy Phallus Oppression, a feature documentary about India's only feminist punk rock band. It was on a trip home to shoot that the implications of the pandemic started to strike from all directions—loss of income, travel cancellations, and attempting to cover rent in New York while unable to return due to lockdown. "I'm trying to do some online work, but I'm a cinematographer and a director, so there's not much I can do," Sharma says. Staring
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! IndieWire's Eric Kohn talks to filmmaker Roger Ross Williams about his plans to grow his company and support young black filmmakers. At the same time, he wanted to manage expectations. "We can’t reverse 400 years of racism overnight," he said. "Hollywood has a short attention span and could forget about this when you see don't see riots in the streets anymore. And we