Fernando Birri, the founder of modern Argentine--as well as Latin American-- documentary cinema, defined the enemy as "subcinema." His 1962 Manifesto of Santa Fe concludes that the social documentary's revolutionary function in Latin America demands that filmmakers "put [themselves] before reality with a camera and document it, document the underdevelopment. The cinema that makes itself an accomplice to this underdevelopment is a subcinema." Birri based his conclusion on research he conducted with his students at the Documentary School of Santa Fe from 1956 through 1958, which also resulted in
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I watched the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama on a television set in a Park City condo. I was at the 25th Sundance Film Festival, where I was pitching a project, as a Sundance Documentary Institute Fellow, about Black photographers. And though I was far from DC, I was excited to share the experience and euphoria of the inauguration of the nation's first president of color, elected against all odds after an incredible campaign that used media to empower and give voice to constituencies usually discounted and ignored. I felt the desire to document this incredible event, to be a