"My name is Ayudh Chatterjee, and I’m slightly unwell, sorry," coughs a little boy bundled up in a sweater and scarf. "But in this movie, the teacher insists that two and two equals five. Is this right?" "No!" shouts the indignant audience. "Then the cruel teacher forces the student to agree, brings three bullies to force him, but he refuses, he keeps rebelling. They kill him! Despite this, that other boy, even though he says 'five' out loud, he writes '4' in his notebook. That is right!" He hands the mic back. He gets a round of wild applause. In Ariadaha, in the northern suburbs of Kolkata
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Since early 2020, the COVID pandemic has taken a merciless toll on film institutions and festivals around the world. But for Cinemateca Brasileira, aka the Brazilian Cinematheque, founded in 1940 and located in São Paulo, the crisis that ended with it shutting its doors in August 2020 had been nearly a decade in the making. The slow, agonizing burnout left the revered, beleaguered institution—including its workers—not only at the mercy of the faltering government’s response to longstanding economic downturn and the pandemic fallout, but also in the maelstrom of a highly politicized cultural
Few media arts centers last 50 years, let alone in Manhattan, where sky-high rents drive most out of business. But DCTV has survived for half a century. However, no celebration can be planned as long as Omicron is raging in the city. Co-founder Jon Alpert takes the long view, saying, “We want to survive, adapt, and be as relevant going forward as we have been for the last 50 years. That’s the best way to celebrate.” The reasons behind DCTV’s success are many. But foremost among them are owning the property where they’re housed, the revenue stream from DCTV productions, and the dedication of
Thomas Allen Harris is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and artist whose acclaimed works include VINTAGE—Families of Value, Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, Family Pictures USA―a documentary-style television program that uses shared family photos to bring communities together―and Digital Diaspora Family Reunion, a cross-country transmedia project that incorporates community organizing, performance, and virtual happenings to create an interactive form of storytelling. Harris has been teaching at Yale University for the past five years, and thanks
Gerardo del Valle is a video journalist from Guatemala currently based in New York City. His work explores the people behind the headlines and the repercussions of policy decisions on communities. He studied Communications and Media at Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala and has a Master’s degree in Journalism from the City University of New York. He is a Firelight Documentary Lab Fellow and an SFFilm Foundation New American Fellow. His latest project The Past Is Waiting Up Ahead is supported by IDA’s Enterprise Documentary Fund and the Sundance Institute. Starting his career working as a
The Imposter is an important film for a number of reasons: (1) It is a stand-alone, deeply compelling piece of storytelling; (2) in classic hybrid fashion, the film places an emphasis on the aesthetics and plays comfortably in the terrain of unmediated truths; and (3) it leaves me questioning Hollywood dramatic narratives that mine doc elements to enhance the authenticity of the story—a genre I’m calling "infictional cinema." The Imposter, the 2012 hybrid doc and psychological thriller directed by Bart Layton, displays a stunning series of high-stakes events captured by performing the archives
The Durham, North Carolina-based Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is noted for its homey atmosphere, easy access to filmmakers, and the kind of programming that, by and large, asks viewers to pay attention. The wise, pandemic-driven choice to go virtual for 2022 left attendees with only one of the three reasons to show up. "The spirit of Full Frame is still felt by prioritizing the filmmakers and ensuring the online platform is as accessible as possible for audiences to engage with their films," says Artistic Director/Interim Festival Director Sadie Tillery. The stripped-down experience
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Black Maternal Health Week, which takes place between April 11–17, was officially recognized by the White House on April 13, 2021. Within a world where every social system is plagued by racism and misogyny, the USA alone reports a maternal mortality rate in Black women that is two to three times higher than that of white women. The BMHW 2022 theme this year is “Building for Liberation: Centering Black Mamas, Black Families and Black Systems of Care.” Our Screen Time this week
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! The New Yorker’s Hua Hsu speaks to Stanley Nelson about his career, Attica, and a lifetime of chronicling America’s history. Other than A Place of Our Own, Nelson doesn’t consider his films to be personal. Yet, his works, such as his retelling of Emmett Till’s murder and his chronicling of the Attica uprising, manage to uncover small, sometimes forgotten, spaces of
On US National Pet Day (April 11), we celebrate the special members of our family who are there for us unconditionally. From the day-to-day companionship, warmth, and laughter of family pets, to the life-saving roles of service animals, our lives are much better off with them around. Here are seven documentaries to watch for National Pet Day this year. Stray (Elizabeth Lo, 2021) Turkey has a no-kill, no-capture policy toward all stray animals. Elizabeth Lo’s Stray follows a trio of canine outcasts roam the streets of Istanbul and shows us an intimate portrait of the life of a city and its