During this unprecedented period of the coronavirus pandemic, people have had to lean more and more on the use of technology for daily interactions and responsibilities. In some places such as in China, the increasing use of personal devices and technology coincides with an increased surveillance of personal data. Civilians in certain Chinese cities such as Hangzhou are categorized by ''contagion risk'' determined by mobile data and surveillance techniques that track people’s locations and who they have been with. According to a recent New York Times article, this data is often shared
Latest Posts
The joy of human-to-human dialogue about the creative process is the heart of Pamela Cohn’s book, Lucid Dreaming: Conversations with 29 Filmmakers. Cohn, whose lengthy list of nonfiction film accomplishments span writing, commentary, curation and filmmaking itself, used her own archive of filmmaker interviews, as well as new conversations, to assemble an eclectic collection of voices from across the global documentary landscape. While most of the independent artists featured may not be top-of-mind filmmakers in the industry (working largely, as Cohn notes, “in virtual obscurity”), all have
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! On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the premiere of Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, IndieWire's Eric Kohn rounded up the crew to share their reflections on making this 2000s classic. Werner was obsessed with Treadwell as a loon, Treadwell as this Klaus Kinski type. He didn’t want cuddly nature stuff; he wanted Treadwell going wacko. I had our loggers go through
The news of Daisy Coleman's death last week has left us heartbroken.
When shooting vérité, Jesse Moss is typically a one-man-band. But his latest film—codirected with his wife, Amanda McBaine—demanded a full orchestra. Boys State required 28 crew members, to be exact, including an octet of cinematographers.
Japanese director Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad stands as a seminal achievement in documentary films about sports, right up there with Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia. However, when the Japanese Olympic Committee first viewed the 168-minute film that they had commissioned Ichikawa to make, they were not pleased. They insisted that he reshoot it to produce a more conventional film. Ichikawa’s wry humor was evident as he pointed out, “Circumstances prevented it, as the entire cast had left Japan.” Ultimately, a 93-minute version more to their liking was released. A similar version with insipid
The documentary community lost Jonathan Oppenheim last month, at 67, following a long bout with brain cancer. Jonathan was a giant among documentary editors. His prodigious canon dates back to Martin Bell and Mary Ellen Mark's Streetwise (1984), which received an Academy Award nomination. Its depiction of homeless teens and runaways in Seattle inspired Edet Ebelzberg to hire Jonathan to edit her first film, Children Underground (2001), which went on to win an IDA Documentary Award for Best Feature, as well as an Academy Award nomination. And in between those two films, there was Jennie
In celebration of International Youth Day on August 12, we’re highlighting five documentaries that showcase the (pre-COVID) lives of youth from the US and around the world. We Are the Radical Monarchs (Linda Goldstein Knowlton) Meet the Radical Monarchs, an Oakland-based alt-troop composed of young girls of color, with members earning badges for completing units on social justice, including being an LGBTQ ally, the environment and disability justice. An IDA-fiscally sponsored project, the film follows the first troop of Radical Monarchs for over three years until they graduate, and documents
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Streaming this month on POV, starting August 10, is About Love, from Archana Atul Phadke, who trains her camera on her Mumbai-based family, three generations of which live together in the same home. The personal becomes political as power structures within the family become visible, and eventually unravel. Cruel and comic in equal measure, the film shows the vagaries of affection across generations. Premiering August 12 on HBO, Muta’Ali Muhammad's Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over
If every documentary tells a story, then one of the most critical issues in our community today is who gets to tell that story, and to whom. IDA has engaged in debates surrounding self-representation and power dynamics in storytelling for a long time–from discussing the pressing need to decolonize docs to “ the inequity of unchallenged filmmaker bias and motives, of the chasm between the subject and audience (and) of film as a tool of racialized colonial power and empire.” August 9 is recognized as International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. While documentaries have attempted to