Summer/Fall 2024

It’s the summer of conferences, conventions, and gatherings of all sorts, in so many different places. In gathering, we create images and reports. Some of them are mundane. And some of them become talismans, like the photographs and videos of a former American president fist-pumping with a bleeding ear. But none of them, alone, are evidence of our togetherness or divisiveness. Because these documents, such as documentary films, are not merely snapshots in time. These images—and all images—are, as stated by cinematographer and filmmaker Kirsten Johnson in her keynote address at Getting Real ’24, “ongoing relationships between the people who made them and the people who see them, as long as they last.” That is, it’s up to us, in the now, to negotiate what happens after gatherings. This issue examines people, films, and filmmaking practices that make crucial decisions about which stories are bestowed with the power of being told and retold.

Articles will be published online between August–September 2024.