One of the beauties of non-fiction filmmaking is presenting the audience with a reality that they might never have known before. Yet, there is a fascinating aspect to comprehending how human beings behave and live differently in each corner of the world. In this sense, the Polish documentary The Queen …
The concept behind Given Names (Prénoms) is so simple that it’s hard to believe no one has ever done it before. Filmmaker Nurith Aviv showed up at the apartments of various friends of hers with a bunch of flowers, and then listened to the friend talk about their first, or …
For almost fifty years, the country of Yugoslavia was important in global geopolitics. Zastava, a company founded in the 1850s as a weapons manufacturer, pivoted and began producing vehicles a century later. Fiat, the Italian manufacturer from Turin, licensed its designs to the Yugoslav industry. Zastava would sell models of …
Before the spread of the academia as a central form of producing and teaching knowledge, the indigenous communities already understand crucial learnings about the world. Historically, civilizations such as the Mayans and Aztecs produced immense amounts of information on mathematics and engineering. Human being tends to seek understanding of their …
In the inception of filmmaking, cinema was similar to magic. It is the illusionism of the images that impressed dozens of people gathered in a room watching a machine that projects photos. In that first showing in Paris, filmmaking was a new form of witchcraft, the combination of chemical processes …
Rio de Janeiro is arguably the most well-known city in Brazil and one of the most iconic places in the world. However, despite the undeniable natural beauty, the town is destroyed by its contradictions. Throughout the construction of Rio as a city, there has been a connection between wealth and …
In recent years, documentaries have become a space for personal histories. Filmmakers saw the non-fiction form as an opportunity to reflect on their lives and eternalize the memories, shadows, and complexities of their backgrounds. Therefore, throughout archival, diary, and poetic structures, directors expose their intimacies, unveiling their emotions and the …
Documentary filmmaking also works as a personal chamber for filmmakers to pour their hearts into films. Throughout the diary or poetic non-fiction, the directors can discuss their personal lives, the formality of cinema, and themes they are passionate about. It is a chance to unveil themselves and the world surrounding …
At the beginning of the 20th Century, Europe was boiling with ideas and cultural movements. Modernism, Brutalism, and the Belle Epoqué bloomed with multiple currents that provoked changes in the cultural and societal landscape in the world. In 1919, a particular school in Germany taught and shaped artists whose work …
Since Seized showed at the Sundance Film Festival, news has dropped about the dismantling of the Washington Post by its billionaire owner. The ability of a free and fair press to hold power to account is something that it seems the seat of American government is about to lose, probably …
Throughout the social formation of the Americas, religiosity is fundamental to understanding the rooted traditions of the multiple Latin cultures. In a sense, the moral compass, the ethics, and the comprehension of the world reflect the influences of the Portuguese and Spanish Catholics, who, through the genocidal project, spread the …
Soul Patrol’s depiction of the Vietnam War combat experiences of a group of young black men is designed to restore their place within the military history of the American war machine, which at the time was still segregated as well as frequently openly racist. A great deal of the footage …
Cinema works as a personal diary for filmmakers. The camera as an instrument substitutes the pen, words shift to images, and the stories build upon a different logic. Similar to the process of writing in a journal, there is a process involved in the act of storytelling. The written story …
It is no surprise that Nuisance Bear won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, because it does what all good movies should, and even fewer documentaries achieve: it is not really about what it’s about. The ability to succeed on a double level is …
This documentary is about the power of community in healing from grief, through the method of Gaelic psalm singing. The dialogue is almost entirely in Scots-Gaelic – the indigenous language of Scotland and a cousin to Irish Gaelic, the indigenous language of Ireland – and centers the journey of one …
There is a small rural enclave in southern Philippines called Sitio Masalay, whose fields were turned into a horrific site of carnage one fateful day in November 2009, summarily taking 58 innocent lives. In the aftermath, only 57 bodies were found, and one remains missing. Director Carl Joseph Papa presciently …
Throughout the more than a hundred and twenty-five years of filmmaking, the film history organized itself into canons and critical retrospectives that analyzed cinema through various prisms. Similar to all of the arts, this canon is white-centered and Anglo-European, excluding the works of people of color, women, and those located …
James Benning is one of the most prominent experimental directors in history. Labeled as a researcher of the American landscapes, his work features a formally rigorous study of the United States and its structures. His interest in the composition of the country is evident in his most well-known films: The …
It’s very normal for documentaries to begin and end with copious lists of the various production companies who have contributed to or enabled its making. As director Valerie Veatch pointed out in her Sundance Film Festival Q&A, Ghost in the Machine has none of these. She had to fund the …
Even if he wasn’t dying from colon cancer, André Ricciardi would make a fascinating subject for a documentary. Tony Benna’s André Is an Idiot shows this clearly by giving us a look not just at his disease, but at the totality of his life, making this film a joyful celebration …