Dear Readers, Last month, if you were an IDA member who opted into receiving print issues of Documentary , you received a copy of our redesigned print quarterly in the mail. In the last month, we’ve been slowly releasing these pieces online, with more to come in February. These pieces include the latest “Making a Production” profile, on Meerkat Media ’s worker-owner cooperative structure and the brilliant work that is produced within this system; a feature essay on plot twists in Four Daughters , which was recently nominated for an Oscar, and other documentaries; Can Candan’s first-person
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Since Pedro and I first started filming unseen in May 2016, I’ve always told him that my main audience for our film is no one else but him. After all, unseen is about his life and his decade-long journey to become a social worker. What makes the pursuit of this goal not so straightforward is the fact that Pedro is blind. If Pedro is truly my main audience, how can I make a film (arguably a primarily visual medium) not only accessible for him but, more so, enjoyable?
In 2018, like many others in India, filmmaker Vinay Shukla stopped watching the news. Since the right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power in 2014, news channels have transformed into hate-mongering sites that actively propagate an aggressive brand of Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim bigotry. Shukla’s aversion was rooted in wanting to protect his mental health. But he was also eager to understand the mental health of those working in the ecosystem, such as the minority of journalists who still report the truth, instead of being government mouthpieces. The result is While We
A revelatory portrait of psychics and their clients, Lana Wilson’s Look Into My Eyes is also an unexpectedly poignant love letter to the myriad artists and performers that fake it till they make it in NYC—as well as to the city itself. A few days prior to the film’s January 22 premiere at Sundance, Documentary was fortunate to catch up with the director.
As a clueless American not previously aware that “Gross National Happiness” is a measurable index in the Himalayan country of Bhutan, I did a double-take reading the synopsis of Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s Sundance-debuting Agent of Happiness , thinking that “GNH” might be the premise for some sort of dystopian fiction. However, I then realized that Bhattarai, a native of Bhutan, and the Hungarian Zurbó are the co-directors behind the critically-acclaimed, IDFA-premiering 2017 doc The Next Guardian. Like that Bhutan-set feature, which pits a Buddhist monastery caretaker’s expectations
Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir (2020’s The Postcard ) grew up in a world in which images were forbidden. She had no childhood photos (save for one that she doubted was even her) and only learned as an adult of the shocking military crackdown that occurred in her neighborhood in 1981; not only were the “bread riots” absent from any school lessons, but only a single photograph managed to make it past government censors and into her nation's historical archive. So when her parents decided to finally move from her childhood home, the director-writer-producer seized the opportunity to both help
Sundance’s hold on worldwide documentary market trends remains in full force, even if its status is now based more on historical precedence than actual sales of films with available rights. For the upcoming 2024 edition (January 18–28), the programmers—headed again by Kim Yutani—seem to have steered clear of anything that might be as controversial as Jihad Rehab (2022; also known as The UnRedacted ) or as ethically questionable as Beyond Utopia (2023). The film selection of Eugene Hernandez’s first edition as festival director leans into ongoing trends such as biographical documentaries of
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, my passion for video production was ignited in childhood while accompanying my father, a national public network announcer, to TV studios. Enrolling in Visual Arts at a prestigious local university, I simultaneously pursued language education in French, English, and Italian while honing videography and photography skills. Further studies in Video Design and Filmmaking at the European Institute of Design in Rome enriched my knowledge. Returning to Colombia, I delved into the advertising industry, contributing to projects for renowned brands. A documentary filmmaking
Founded in 2005, Doc Society became the British Film Institute’s documentary partner in 2018, administering money raised through the UK’s National Lottery. Luke Moody oversees the three key programs that comprise the BFI Doc Society Fund, all of which are for UK-based filmmakers.
This Monday, we remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the legacy of the Civil Rights movement. Check out our curated list of documentary films and series on Dr. King and the civil rights era.