IFP's Independent Film Week, which ran September 17 through 20 in New York City, had a strong focus on narrative filmmaking, but the programmers saved
Ethics
There was plenty to look forward to at the 11th Tribeca Film Festival. More than 30 documentaries played in competition and non-competition sections
About a Hero is set to have its world premiere as the opening film at IDFA tomorrow. It’s based on a script generated by an AI trained on Werner Herzog’s interviews, voiceovers, and writing. The resulting film, full of ironic self-reflection, explores themes of originality, authenticity, common sense, and the human soul in an era shaped by machine-human relationships. The filmmakers employ a variety of AI tools—from scripting to voice synthesis to image experimentation. The film is also intercut with documentary interviews with various artists about AI. We spoke with Piotr Winiewicz, the film’s director, in advance of the film’s premiere over Zoom and email.
Welcome to The Synthesis, a new monthly column exploring the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and documentary practice. Over the next year, co-authors shirin anlen and Kat Cizek will lay out ten (or so) key takeaways that synthesize the latest intelligence on synthetic media and AI tools—alongside their implications for nonfiction mediamaking. Balancing ethical, labor, and creative concerns, they will engage Documentary readers with interviews, analysis, and case studies. The Synthesis is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Co-Creation Studio at MIT’s Open Doc Lab and WITNESS.
In a world rent asunder, conference speakers thrust documentary ethics into reality.
Now, while there may be greater attention to filmmakers’ proximity to their subjects and a push for more diverse directors, co-directors, producers, and crew members, there’s also a rise in what some call “cover-your-ass” hires over meaningful collaborations. If the U.S. industry, then, has accepted that documentary projects benefit from having creatives from similar races, genders, sexualities, or nationalities as their subjects, they might be included—but are they actual partners?
“I don’t think of myself as a documentary filmmaker”: Documentary spoke with Kienitz Wilkins to discuss his methodology, his thoughts on documentary’s relationship to his work, and the festival landscape at large.
"Block Party": Veteran game developers Navid and Vassiliki Khonsari of iNK Stories are building an open world that reflects their own community of Brooklyn, NYC, populating it with AI-powered NPC avatars in the likeness of the duo’s real-life neighbors. Documentary spoke to the duo about this experiment and its profound implications for the documentary field.
Jemma Desai’s keynote address at Getting Real 2024 delves deeply into the ethical and existential challenges faced by cultural workers, particularly in the realm of documentary filmmaking, against the backdrop of global conflicts, notably the ongoing crisis in Palestine: “I have chosen to speak about integrity and so I cannot speak about anything but Palestine.” Her reflections resonate beyond the specific context of film, challenging all cultural workers to consider their role in shaping narratives that affirm human dignity and confront systemic injustices.
Since Beyond Utopia debuted at last year’s Sundance, where it won the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary, the film has screened at film festivals