Editor’s note: I had a chance to talk with Harrison Engle about that article and the long strange trip from “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera” to “The tribe has spoken.” Following are excerpts from our conversation. You’ve read the article that you wrote 35 years ago. What can you assess about the trajectory that television has or hasn’t taken, from Candid Camera to Big Brother and Survivor, which one could argue are the offspring of Candid Camera? ENGLE: They are kind of the offspring. The trajectory, I’m sorry to say, has been a downward spiral since those days. It’s interesting to see that
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Created in connection with an annual conference under the same name, Visible Evidence is a significant new series of books from the University of Minnesota Press that seeks to challenge prevailing notions of the “documentary tradition” and of nonfiction culture more generally. The on-going series is edited by Michael Renov, professor of critical studies in the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California; Faye Ginsburg, professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York University; and Jane M.Gaines, associate professor of
When Taxicab Confessions premiered on HBO in 1995, normally cynical television reviewers from coast to coast tossed around words like “riveting,” “fascinating,” and “an amazing wild ride.” The show, in which hidden cameras document conversations between cabbies and their passengers, went on to win an Emmy later that year. Subsequent episodes have aired to similar praise, and audiences can’t seem to get enough of the gritty peek at human nature. In fact, the five years since Confessions debuted have seen a mass proliferation of so-called reality television, from the traditional documentary
In its third year, docfest, New York's annual international documentary festival, has truly come into its own. A whirligig of screenings, Q&A sessions, panel discussions and post-screening receptions, docfest sustains an amazingly high level of anticipation and energy over its six-day duration. Crowded with enthusiastic filmgoers, represented filmmakers and – usually -- people who appear in their films, docfest feels something like a documentary Cannes. This isn't to suggest that it's chaotic or overwhelming; in fact, one can comfortably take in all 16 screening and three non-screening events
The eleventh annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, in its sixth collaboration with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, took place in June. It is perhaps the only festival in the world solely addressing human rights—although such topics are common as part of the regular programming of many other festivals. This year HRWIFF screened 31 titles, most of them documentaries longer than sixty minutes. Screenings for 16 days enabled the festival to repeat each title twice. Most films were followed immediately by press conferences with the producers, many having come from
The two events could not be more different. Visions du Réel was a small relaxed Swiss lakeside festival, showing a selection of some 100 documentary films from 25 countries in four theatres. Sunny Side, which is purely a market, took place in the bustling French city of Marseille, and ressembled a mini Cannes MIP, with filmmakers roaming the corridors in search of co-producers and commissioning editors. A good festival needs to be efficient, friendly and have good meeting areas, and in all of these Visions du Réel scored high marks. The centre was in a chalet-like building which housed both
Dear IDA Members: In this issue, you will read the announcement of nominees for IDA's 16th annual awards fur Distinguished Achievement in Documentary. Congratulations to all of this year's films and filmmakers! This was another record-breaking year for entries. Behind the scenes making the awards process work was a huge volunteer corps. As in previous years, a few IDA veterans volunteered to chair our pre-screening committees. Special thanks to Lynne Littman, Marilyn Engle, Barbara Leigh Gregson, Sven Berkemeier and John Mason for their leadership of the 16th annual awards juries. Our thanks
The year 2000 saw Toronto’s Hot Docs Film Festival truly come of age. The success of the screenings, coupled with an auspicious debut for the Toronto Documentary Forum (TDF), made this first week in May a new staple of the documentary calendar year. Credit goes to the festival and forum organizers, especially Chris McDonald, Rudy Buttignol. Michaelle MacLean Amy Briamonte and the Amsterdam Forum’s Jolanda Klorenbeek who worked very hard to create a positive atmosphere for screenings and discussion. The Canadian Independent Film Caucus, a national association of Canadian documentary filmmakers
Media historians will look back on 2000 as the summer when European and American broadcasting reached the same wavelength. "Voyeur TV" is hurtling through broadcasting markets, breaking viewer records and causing critics everywhere to ponder its greater meaning. But the US and Europe have arrived at this common ground from very different directions. In the US, reality-based television represents a sharp departure from major network primetime fare of a year ago. The trend is also significant for its reversal in the usual stream of exports of American formats abroad: Big Brother and Survivor
In 1993 film scholars held the first Visible Evidence conference devoted exclusively to “strategies and practices in documentary film and video.” The event at Duke University was so productive that it has been repeated annually at other locations ever since. (This year’s conference took place last month in Utrecht in The Netherlands) The conferences represent an important reconfiguration and redefinition of documentary studies in the academy. They have also given birth to a significant new series of books under the same title from the University of Minnesota Press that seek to challenge