“Hawai‘i is the extinction capital and endangered species capitol of the world,” declares Kealoha Pisciotta, a Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) traditional knowledge-keeper and cultural practitioner, in the 2005 documentary Mauna Kea—Temple Under Siege, “We cannot support de-creation…It is against the law of the universe and creator to eliminate a species.” In 2020, this award-winning documentary by Joan Lander and the late, beloved Puhipau, was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. They enjoyed a lifelong professional and loving partnership, forming Nā Maka o ka ‘Āina
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Filmmaking is a collaborative endeavor, but it can be highly hierarchical. In documentary cinema, the asymmetry of power is often particularly acute when Western filmmakers engage with global communities. A sensitivity to such asymmetry was therefore paramount to the filming of The Territory (2021), which the American director Alex Pritz made with the Uru-eu-wau-wau people in the Brazilian region of the Amazon Forest. The collaboration, brokered by local activist Neida Bandeira, or Neidinha, who’s featured in the film, stems from the Uru-eu-wau-waus’ desire to educate and recruit international
The end of El Gran Movimiento, the hybrid second film by Bolivian director Kiro Russo, consists, quite literally, of all that came before. In a rapid-fire montage, images from prior scenes flash across the screen, first appearing just long enough for the viewer to recall each individually, then far too fast to even register. It’s the sound that makes the sequence, though: the montage unfolds to a salsa-inflected rendition of a snippet of the Alloy Orchestra’s score for Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera (1929). Condensing the entire film into a brief moment within a sequence that most
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! A conversation between IndieWire’s Eric Kohn and Free Chol Soo Lee producer Su Kim discusses how the media market limits the drive for content creation in documentary filmmaking and how her work aims to counter limits. Kim’s producing career over the past decade coincided with the explosion of the documentary filmmaking market stimulated by the streaming market. Yet
Shooting Faya Dayi without a crew in rural Ethiopia, where walking long distances was the only way to arrive at my locations, taught me something about the joys of traveling light. In a sense, all my gear choices were a response to this specific challenge, starting with the bag. Once I stripped my equipment to the bare essentials, I used my Kata Pro-Light bag, which fit all my sound and camera gear, as well as my computer and portable mini hard drives, and is a super comfortable bag to wear with padded shoulder and waist straps. It made all the difference and has lasted me over 10 years! I
Los Angeles, CA (Tuesday, August 9, 2022) – The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced today that the Getting Real ‘22, its biennial convening for documentary practitioners, will be held both in-person in Los Angeles and with a virtual audience from all around the world next month from September 27-29. The Getting Real ‘22 conference keynote speakers are Erika Dilday, Anand Patwardhan, and Nanfu Wang. National Geographic's Carolyn Bernstein, the executive VP of scripted and feature documentaries, will also join the conference for an intimate fireside conversation. The complete
In Ben Klein and Violet Columbus’ 2022 Sundance-premiering documentary, The Exiles, the filmmakers follow filmmaker Christine Choy as she reconnects with three dissidents she had filmed for her 1989 project Tiananmen/China Today: Wu’er Kaixi, Wan Runnan, and Yan Jiaqi. However, in developing a new documentary that resurrects collaborative footage from more than 30 years ago, controversies have arisen—specifically regarding what is “truth” when it comes to the editing and synthesis of old footage into a new documentary that collaborates heavily with one of its original makers. Klein and
Discovering Errol Morris’ Vernon, Florida, inside a dark alcove in NYU’s media library as an undergrad studying film was what inspired me to pursue documentary seriously. In Vernon, Florida, I saw how nonfiction could be a place for as much innovation, artistry, and mystery as fiction filmmaking. Released in 1981, Vernon, Florida was Morris’ second feature, a 55-minute documentary set among the residents of a small town in Florida. On the surface, nothing much appears to happen in the film. We listen to and watch the meandering ramblings of a few town residents: a turkey hunter obsessed with
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Frontline’s Afghanistan Undercover, which exposes the reality of women living under Taliban rule, airs August 9. Correspondent Ramita Navai shares stories of not only women facing punishments from Taliban officials, but the women activists fighting to rescue them. Watch the documentary on PBS. Camilla Nielsson’s President follows the complexities behind the test for political power in Zimbabwe in the 2018 general election. As Nelson Chamisma challenges current president
BY Tom White & Bedatri D. Choudhury