Dear Readers,

For years, I’ve complained in my own film criticism that film writing, even in its most beguiling, insightful, and eviscerating forms, is mostly woefully unconcerned with the industrial logics behind the production and circulation of films. Happily, a lot of this is changing. Several longform reported pieces about just how boring most streaming content is have gone viral in U.S. cultural publications such as Vulture and n+1; outlets like the Washington Post and the Swedish online magazine Kvartal investigated the tensions of making specific documentaries (on Retrograde and Sabaya, respectively); and film magazines like the Dutch mainstay de Filmkrant recently started columns highlighting the political and economic challenges facing filmmakers in countries around the world. In a time of many existential threats against a free press, censorship-free media ecosystems, and artistic expression, we can draw inspiration from the many peers around the world upholding their commitments to independence.

Our cover is dedicated to Heiny Srour, whose boundary-defying two feature films have been traveling the world after being restored in the last decade. The Lebanese filmmaker, who was raised Jewish, is both obscure and legendary, depending on what circles you occupy. In a rousing essay, writer and curator Alia Ayman connects her insightful interview with Srour and analysis of Srour’s films with the political economy of film exhibition. Srour does not suffer fools, and is not shy about her achievements.

The features in this issue all draw the contours of how outside forces affect documentaries, and vice versa. Rintu Thomas goes long and personal on the filmmaking journey that led to her Oscar-nominated Writing With Fire (2023, co-directed with Sushmit Ghosh) and the unexpected schism with the film’s protagonists, with the benefit of hindsight. This is an essay several years in the making, and we’re proud to so thoughtfully engage with age-old questions of documentary ethics and collaboration. Producer Tabs Breese profiles sound designers María Alejandra Rojas and Arturo Salazar, whose work she describes as a mix of technical expertise, artistry, and “pastoral care necessity.” And Rachel Pronger details how Katja Raganelli created over a dozen portraits of women filmmakers and artists through a mix of personal conviction and “rucksack” ingenuity, and how the resulting work is now a vital part of film history.

This issue carries three festival reports. The first is an anti-festival in the seminar model, Doc’s Kingdom, where writer Victor Guimarães found more questions than satisfying answers regarding how documentary should be listened to, as opposed to merely watched. Vladan Petković once again reports from CPH:DOX on the relative strength of its competition titles, as the festival has grown in global importance. And for the first time in Documentary, we cover Korea’s second-largest film festival, Jeonju, located in a city known for its cine-mania. Amarsanaa Battugla confirms its well-known commitment to alternative cinema and also finds a satisfying current of politically-engaged documentaries.

For the first time, this issue’s “Making a Production” profile focuses on a grassroots, activist, and membership-funded production company—PINKS, a queer feminist collective, whose breakout feature Two Doors (2011) is considered by Korean film critics to be one of the best documentaries of all time. Jawni Han pieces together PINKS’s first couple of decades and how the collective is now juggling international acclaim, streaming success, and the implications of its political activism for LGBTQ rights in a country with rising transphobia. For “Legal FAQ,” we asked attorneys Dale Nelson and Victoria Rosales for tips for documentary filmmakers given the rapidly changing legal landscape for AI privacy and copyright in the U.S. And “Screen Time” continues with capsule-length reviews on notable new releases, with more to be published online.

Until then,

Abby Sun
Editor, Documentary