Antipodal Connections

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
Chisu Teresa Ko
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Initial Approach ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
Korean Immigration

Argentines often use the term “antipodes” to describe East Asia as Argentina’s geographical and cultural opposite. Within this antipodal imaginary, Asia and its people often figure in stereotypical, mythical, or unfamiliar terms. Recently, however, there has been a surge of Argentine documentary films about Koreans and Korean immigration to Argentina. Why are so many Argentine documentaries turning to these subjects and why now? This essay focuses on two films—La chica del sur (José Luis García, 2012) and Una canción coreana (Yael Tujsanider and Gustavo Tarrío, 2014)—to understand this new interest. It analyzes the films within the layered contexts from which they emerge: a post-crisis Argentina after the economic meltdown of 2001, the surge of documentary filmmaking as a response to this crisis, and the subjective/reflexive turn of documentary films. The essay argues that the films’ initial approach to their Orientalized subjects enables an exercise of reflexivity which, ultimately, moves filmmakers and audiences beyond reflexivity toward affective, antipodal connections.

‘Does this look right?’ Working Inside the Collaborative Frame

2018 ◽  
pp. 206-220
Author(s):  
Samantha Moore
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
Ethical Perspectives

This chapter is written from, and critically examines, the creative and ethical perspectives of animated documentary practitioners. The author, Samantha Moore, focuses particularly on collaboratively ethnographic approaches to, and examples of, animated documentary filmmaking. This chapter asks to what extent the frame within an animated documentary can become a collaborative, co-authored space that creates truly dialogic images. It also enquiries as to how practitioners do or could go about creating, negotiating and sustaining such forms of collaboration. The chapter discusses key examples from the filmmaking practices of the author and her peers, including Shira Avni, who works with the Down syndrome and autistic communities. It does so in order to outline what impacts different forms of collaborative filmmaking approach might have for audience, filmmakers, and documentary subject-participants, especially in the contexts of documentary films that aim to give a voice to marginalised and unrepresented human perspectives.

scholarly journals Furtado, Gustavo Procopio. Documentary Filmmaking in Contemporary Brazil: Cinematic Archives of the Present. Oxford UP, 2019

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Rajca
Keyword(s):  
Media Studies ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Film And Media Studies ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
Selection Of

In Documentary Filmmaking in Contemporary Brazil: Cinematic Archives of the Present, film and media studies scholar Gustavo Procopio Furtado makes an impressive contribution to the study of documentary films in Brazil. Consisting of three interrelated sections with two chapters each, the book engages with the concepts of documentary and archive from a variety of perspectives—combining socio-political and theoretical discussion with close analysis of a well-chosen selection of contemporary documentaries.

scholarly journals REALITY (RE-)VISITED: CHILDREN OF PROSTITUTES IN BORN INTO BROTHELS

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Touhid A. Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Technological Development ◽  
Red Light ◽  
Motion Pictures ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
The People ◽  
Real People ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
Red Light District

The human quest for securing, recording, and preserving memories of reality lead to the invention of motion pictures, which then gave birth to documentary films. Documentary filmmaking has radically evolved in recent years. Capturing reality come into scrutiny as more and more technological development allows the documentary filmmakers to design and articulate reality more subjectively than ever before. Born Into Brothels is a film about real people from the red light districts of Calcutta. Poverty and disease are two common phenomena of the people who live in Sonagachi, Calcutta’s red-light district. Another name of the documentary, Calcutta’s Red Light Kids, skillfully turns audience’s focus on the children of the brothels from Calcutta, which in a way, establishes that this film is about kids and not prostitution. The fact that Born Into Brothels is about children of prostitutes and not about prostitution makes it an intriguing example in analyzing the presented “reality” as well as the filmmakers’ perspectives. This article intends to investigate specific filmic and editorial techniques that documentary filmmakers use in articulating the inevitable reality of society. This article argues that Born Into Brothels tries to invoke humanitarian awareness among the audience and in a broader sense into society. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0780/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

scholarly journals FILM DOKUMENTER SEBAGAI KATALIS PERUBAHAN SOSIAL: STUDI KASUS AMBON, ACEH DAN BALI

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
Budi Irawanto ◽  
Theresia Octastefani
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Indonesian Archipelago ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Local Media ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking

Since democratization (Reformasi) in 1998, documentary films gradually evolve with their locus of production spreading across the Indonesian archipelago. With the spirit of democratization brought about by digital technology, film communities and civil organizations in outer islands of Java utilize digital documentary film to capture several pertinent socio-political issues and raise public and government attention and responses. Those issues are commonly overlooked by the local media and were never a part of local government’s policies. Based on our fieldwork conducted in three areas outside of the Java Island (Ambon, Aceh and Bali), where digital documentary filmmaking and civil organizations are active and vibrant, our study indicates that rather than simply producing documentaries, film communities or non-governmental organizations disseminated documentaries through public screenings to invite further engagement of audiences by discussing the film with authorities (policy makers) that were often invited in that event.  In this article, we attempt to illuminate how documentary filmmaking allows the unseen and neglected issues to be articulated visually and sonically. Therefore, it would be compelling public or media attention and encouraging further government policy to resolve that matters. In other words, documentary films are a catalyst for social change by taking their roles as witness for the public and demanding responsibilities of the political authority.

scholarly journals The subjective voice and hybrid documentary filmmaking strategies

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-110
Author(s):  
Jill Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Film Theory ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
The South ◽  
Sensory Mode ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
Perceived Constraints

In this case study Jill Daniels references several of her recent experimental documentary films that mediate memory, place and subjectivities: Not Reconciled (2009); The Border Crossing (2011); My Private Life (2013); My Private Life II (2015) and Journey to the South (2017). She proposes the notion that film communicates in a sensory mode that may defy written theorisation or interpretation, with a rigor and precision that is quite separate to that of written language, but that nevertheless films, like written language, may add to knowledge. She argues that film theory is essential to enable the filmmaker to raise their work above the narrow framework of craft. She interrogates the notion that experimentation in documentary films may avoid perceived constraints of certainty, evidence and veracity. She notes that as a practice researcher within the academy she has freedom to experiment, which has brought considerable benefits to her practice.

‘My Heart Beat for the Wilderness’: Isobel Wylie Hutchison, Jenny Gilbertson, Margaret Tait and Other Twentieth-Century Scottish Women Filmmakers

Films on Ice ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Neely
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Heart Beat ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Women Filmmakers ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
History Of ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Women Explorers

In this chapter Sarah Neely explores the works of three Scottish women filmmakers who made films in the Arctic. These women are part of a largely unwritten history of the cinema: it was rare enough in the 1930s to be directing documentary films; to have them go to the Arctic on expeditions is mostly unheard of. Neely examines the works of ‘amateur’ filmmakers Margaret Tait, Jenny Gilbertson and Isobel Wylie Hutchison, considering the ways in which their works could be understood as those of ‘women explorers’, and the ways in which ‘women explorers’ have been left outside canonical accounts of Polar exploration and the cinema. Neely positions their works, both those produced in the UK, and in Canada, as a different mode of documentary filmmaking from the tradition formulated by Scottish filmmaker, producer and theorist John Grierson, who nonetheless played a central part of some of their training.

scholarly journals Cyberspace and gay rights in a digital China: Queer documentary filmmaking under state censorship

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Shaw ◽  
Xiaoling Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
Social Media Networks ◽  
State Administration ◽  
Bisexual And Transgender ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking

Owing to China’s austere censorship regulations on film media, directors of films and documentaries engaging with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender themes have struggled to bring their work to domestic attention. Working outside of the state-funded Chinese film industry has become necessary for these directors to commit their narratives to film, but without approval of China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, these artists have had little chance of achieving widespread domestic distribution of their work. However, advancements in new media technology and Web 2.0, ranging from digital video formats to Internet-based distribution via social media networks and video-hosting platforms, provide opportunities for Chinese audiences to access films and documentaries dealing with LGBT themes. This empirical study assesses how production, promotion and consumption of queer documentary films are influenced by the development of social media within Chinese cyberspace. Through close readings of microblogs from SinaWeibo, this study combines analysis of contemporary research with digital social rights activism to illustrate contemporary discourse regarding film-based LGBT representation in China. Finally, the study comments on the role that documentary filmmaking plays in China’s gay rights movement, and discusses the rewards (and challenges) associated with increased levels of visibility within society.

scholarly journals This Is Not Reality (Ceci n'est pas la réalité): Capturing the Imagination of the People Creativity, the Chinese Subaltern, and Documentary Storytelling

2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Voci
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
The Political ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
The Real ◽  
The People ◽  
Personal Approach ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
Creative Subject

How has documentary(re)presented subaltern creativity? Focusing on post-socialist, globalizing China, I examine documentary narratives by and about the creative subaltern originating from Chinese &ldquo;cool cities&rdquo; and expanding in the virtual space of global digital media. In these narratives, the creative subaltern has appeared obliquely, tangential to other narratives, subordinate to internationally recognized artists, or with a more central role, as the author or the protagonist of documentary films. I analyze these narratives&rsquo; entanglement with elitist definitions of creativity, the representation of subaltern reality, the expression of subjectivity, and the tension between the political and the personal. I argue that documentary has played an important albeit ambiguous role&mdash;provocative and empowering, but also, at times, formulaic and constricting&mdash;in shaping the discourse on the subaltern as a creative subject, by amplifying creativity&rsquo;s indexicality to the real and obfuscating its imaginative quality and its ambition of breaking free from the real. Reflecting on the contemporary relevance of the Free Cinema movement&rsquo;s advocacy for a subjective, personal approach to capturing the &ldquo;imagination of the people&rdquo; and exploration of lyric realism in documentary filmmaking, I propose that documentary can and should dare to &ldquo;make poetry.&rdquo; Forms of documentary expressivity such as poetic, not plot-driven narratives can reconcile imagination with reality and offer alternative, more appropriate means of capturing the complexity, heterogeneity, and contradictoriness of the subaltern condition, and for subaltern creativity to be expressed, appreciated, and affirmed.

scholarly journals The Rise of Documentary Filmmaking in Communication Studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Elmer
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
The University ◽  
First Time ◽  
University Setting

This commentary offers some lessons learned from recent attempts by the author to produce and fund documentary films in the university setting. The article pays particular attention to how crowdfunding can be utilized by first-time media producers.Ce commentaire propose quelques leçons apprises par l’auteur à la suite de tentativesrécentes de réaliser et de financer des documentaires dans un milieu universitaire. L’article porte une attention particulière à la manière dont les néophytes en matière de production audiovisuelle peuvent recourir au sociofinancement.

Analytic Filmmaking as Social Scientific Research: A Response to Roy Germano

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 684-685
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L. Gould
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Research ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Social Scientific Research ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Aesthetic

This article engages Germano’s film and essay. The author lauds the fundamental thrust of the essay towards achieving scholarly recognition for film projects based on scholarly research. At the same time, the author questions Germano’s sharp opposition between analytic and documentary films. He appraises The Other Side of Immigration very favorably, while pointing out that the aesthetic choices and the power of the testimonies do not fall neatly within the categories established by Germano. The author then discusses his own experiences in conjoining historical research and documentary filmmaking.

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