Film Festival Documentary

The Performative Camera

When the personification of the camera gets wedded to documentary theme.

Much of the drama of poetic documentary comes in how a familiar stylistic approach might be harnassed unpredicatbly.

Turning the poetic mode against expectations.

Do the problems of medium definition in a “post-cinema” age play out differently for documentary?

Documentaries allegorize transnational spectatorship in surprising ways.

A good documentary can start with an idea but hopefully not one too developed.

Are certain directorial choices of framing foreign to documentary?

The conceptual dimension of ubiquitous filmmaking decisions.

Two modes of docfiction spectatorship.

Animation and live action, getting along – or not.

Valuing films that follow genre conventions and follow them well.

Documentaries that switch tone or mode half-way through.

A tale of two reading formations.

In defense of observational cinema.

The importance of the “documentary” label.