ripping reality

- from INTO GREAT SILENCE

Sky Sitney, Director of Programming at Silverdocs, has sent us her list of  essential nonfiction works from the past decade (give or take). It seems to split between doc masters and stunning debuts, with a nice balance of poetry (form) and politics (content). Silverdocs is one of several documentary festivals in the United States to be launched over the past decade (along with True/False, Camden, and now DOCNY).

These festivals, along the many new doc events around the world, have been significant catalysts in the new documentary movement. While there was a short bubble (at least in North America) in which some docs were getting out theatrically, in general it’s film festivals which have fostered and have been the primary platform for the doc phenomenon. The current challenge, as increasingly broadcasters pull away from the form, is for festivals to extend a successful model and continue to grow audiences and opportunities for documentaries.

The goal being to sustain the conditions in which great works such as Sky mentions below can be made and seen. She writes:

13 LAKES (James Benning, USA, 2004) -  Documentary as Art. 13 Lakes is precisely what it claims to be, images of 13 lakes, filmed in equivalent ten-minute takes. The film does not follow anything resembling a traditional narrative trajectory, but is a work of abstract art unto itself.  Minor natural transformations and movements take on transcendent qualities, and Benning quietly reminds us that film can be used to simply look – and that there is, indeed, nothing all that simple about it.

BUS 174 (Jose Padhila, Brazil, 2002) – Almost like being there. On June 12, 2000 a hijack took place on a bus in Rio.  As news cameras dashes to the scene to catch nearly every detail, the whole country remained glued to their TV screens watching the horror unfold. Padhila’s film elevates the news footage to a comprehensive, complex story that looks beyond the headlines, and provides riveting back-stories – both of the hijacker’s psyche and motivations, as well as the mindset of the police department, and ultimately – and by extension – the mind set of the country.

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (Andrew Jarecki, USA, 2003) – Unreliable narrators. A fascinating portrait of a family, told in part by Jarecki’s observational, and presumably unbiased camera, and in part by family home movies.  The film follows an investigation into the truth behind serious accusations of pedophilia – and takes on many twists and turns, as every subject in the film seems at times to be morally suspect. Jarecki does not rush to judgment, but allows the facts – elusive as they may be – to speak for themselves.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (Frederick Wiseman, USA, 2001) -  Direct Cinema lives. Wiseman proves that the genre he helped create and to whose form he strictly adheres, is still as resonant and palpable today as it was over four decades ago. “Domestic Violence” is his example par excellence; an unblinking three-hour plus observation – without judgment or bias – on the perpetrators, victims, and social systems implicated in domestic violence.

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (Alex Gibney, USA, 2005) – Scandals make good stories. Based on the best selling book of the same name, Gibney proved himself to be a filmmaker to watch out for (and that we all have done) in his riveting account of the 2001 collapse of the Enron Corporation, and the resultant criminal trials of the company’s top executives.

EPISODE 3 – ENJOY POVERTY (Renzo Martens, Netherlands, 2009) -  Filmmaker as provocateur. Dutch artist Renzo Martens investigates the emotional and economic value of Africa’s most significant export: poverty.  And as he points a finger, he doesn’t let himself off the hook. With constant self-reflection and self-reference, Martens creates very uneasy and uncomfortable viewing, that to this viewer, was bold, brave, utterly necessary and all too rare.

FAHRENHEIT 911 (Michael Moore, USA, 2004) / BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE  (Michael Moore, USA, 2002) – Michael Moore as a genre unto himself. Love him, or leave him – Michael Moore has probably done more to elevate documentary into mainstream culture than any other filmmaker.  With four films in the top ten highest grossing documentaries of all time (excluding IMAX) in this decade alone – Michael Moore not only invented the now ubiquitous ‘documentarian as subject’ sub-genre (which has inspired numerous protégées, like Spurlock) but the (far less ubiquitous) blockbuster documentary.

THE FOG OF WAR (Errol Morris, USA, 2003) – Character study. Errol Morris interviews 85-year-old Robert McNamara, cut against TV clippings, still photos, footage of World War II bombing runs and air attacks over Vietnam, and audio of taped phone conversations between LBJ and his Defense Secretary. Morris allows McNamara to (at least on the surface) control the interview, and gives the time and space for his subject to reveal and contradict himself, noting occasional ironies along the way.

THE GLEANERS AND I (Agnès Varda, France, 2000) - The Diary & Essay film. The Gleaners and I’ is both diary and essay – Varda is  infectiously curious, genuine and warm, and she uses film as a tool in her personal journey of discovery, on which we are privileged to go along for the ride.

GRIZZLY MAN (Werner Herzog, USA, 2005) – Second hand footage. Werner Herzog is able to, first recognize, and than excavate the inherent lyricism in the otherwise banal footage left behind by Timothy Treadwell, who died in a ferocious attack by a grizzly bear.  Transforming a mere document into poetic documentary, Herzog creates a duet of sorts between his own inspired observations and Treadwell’s unique world view – culminating in a remarkable new voice.

INTO GREAT SILENCE (Philip Gröning, Germany, 2005) – A documentary at its most elemental – no crew, no artificial lighting, no musical score, no voiceover, no archival footage, no direct exposition  – but, the patience to wait 16 years to be given permission to film, and then, the patience to live for six months more with the monks who are the subjects of his film, Groning’s masterpiece doesn’t merely depict life in a monastery, but embodies it – it is a total immersion.

IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (James Longley, USA, 2006) – Poetic War Film. Described as an opus in three parts, Fragments culminates in a series of portraits that resulted from the two years that Longley spent in war torn Iraq. The film offers an intimacy and lyricism seldom seen in this sub-genre.

LAKE OF FIRE (Tony Kaye, USA, 2006) -  An oxymoron – a beautiful ‘issue’ film. A gorgeously shot, and extraordinarily balanced film on the most divisive of subjects – abortion. An extraordinary cinematic and moral achievement – showing all sides, and then some (with many images difficult, but important, to watch) causing audiences to reassess their own attitudes toward this controversial issue.

MAN ON WIRE (James Marsh, USA/UK, 2008) – The resuscitation of re-enactment and archival footage.  Just when we thought that re-enactment was for the birds, James Marsh brings it back in high style. His meticulous interweaving of archival footage, contemporary interviews, and playful re-enactment, bring back to life the ‘artistic crime of the century’ – Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between NYC’s World Trade Center’s twin towers.

SPELLBOUND (Jeffrey Blitz, USA, 2002) – Competition sub-genre.  Cute kids,  the inherent drama of a spelling bee, what’s not to love? Audiences flocked to this feel-good film in droves, and it inspired a sub-genre all its own – the competition documentary film (with Word Play, Mad Hot Ballroom, King of Kong, and numerous others following suit).

WALTZ WITH BASHIR (Ari Folman, Israel/France/Germany, 2008) – Animated documentary. While it may seem paradoxical, Ari Folman’s use of animation as a form of documentary dramatization reveals a deeper truth than may have been possible if relying on a raw footage alone.  The animation makes bearable the unbearable, and gives clarity to devastating and murky terrain of trauma and PTSD.

WHEN THE LEVEE BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS  (Spike Lee, USA, 2006) -  Beyond news. Known more for his feature narratives, Lee delivered one of the most powerful, comprehensive and devastating films on the subject of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.  Interspersing second-hand news footage, still photographs and contemporary interviews, this film took on a topical issue on which we thought we had seen all there was to see, and lays bare the limitations of our new media outlets and the power of testimony.

- the riverbed cinema at Dokufest. (photo taken by Veton Nurkollari)

Veton Nurkollari is not only one of my favourite people in the festival community, Dokufest, the festival he runs in Prizen, Kosovo, remains the fondest experience I’ve had on the circuit. The city has a special energy and warmth, boosted by the fact that the Festival is held during the peak of wedding season.

It seems that half of Prizren’s youth volunteer for Dokufest, and in the evenings most of them become the audience for atmospheric outdoor screenings. While these events can be unruly and a technical challenge in a place where power disruptions are common,  I recall stone silence during a presentation of JAMES BLUNT: RETURN TO KOSOVO.

Blunt, a Brit pop singer, had a tour of  duty as a Captain in the British Army in Kosovo during the conflict in that country. In the doc he returns to perform a concert, and in one scene visits the site of a mass grave his squadron had identified during his service.  That this young audience was watching their very recent history reflected on screen, even as with a glance over the screen, into the hills surrounding Prizren, one could see burned out homes, was a complex,  profoundly moving experience.  It still gives me chills, the power of documentary at its most immediate.

With a disclaimer that he could have went on forever, Veton has sent us the following list of some of his essentials (the fact he’s a photographer himself is evident here):

11. DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE (Hubert Sauper, Austria/France, 2004): An eye opening film that plays like a thriller, Darwin’s Nightmare is a shocking tale of environmental disaster that no one cares about and greed that knows no boundary. Russian pilots, prostitutes, fishermen and watchmen are only a part of the gallery of characters in this almost bizarre documentary.

10. BORN INTO BROTHELS (Ross Kaufmann, Zana Briski, USA, 2004 ): Zana Briski’s film about the young inhabitants of Calcutta’s Red Light district is an emotional travel where each of us cannot help but care about them as the film goes along. Unpretentious and full of love it succeeds in showing how misery can be overcome with simple acts, like giving cameras to kids and teaching them a joy of photography.

9. IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (James Longley, USA, 2006): First in a series of great films about Iraq, James Longley’s Iraq in Fragment is a record of a country caught in violence and despair without ever asking for it. Combined with Longley’s stunning cinematography the film tells a story of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds with such a humanity that one can hardly label it a war documentary.

8. DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER (Kurt Kuenne, USA,  2008): Dear Zachary is like no other film in that it would have been much better if a need to make it never occurred to Kurt Kuenne, its director.  But when Andrew Bagby, his best friend is murdered and his ex-girlfriend and murderer escapes to Canada, where she announces that she was pregnant with Andrew, Kurt sets on a journey to make a film about his friend as a gift to a soon to be born Zachary. The result is a film never seen before in it’s emotional impact to a viewer and the one you’ll find difficult not to think about long after the credits roll.

7. WALTZ WITH BASHIR (Ari Folman, Israel, 2008): What is it to live in a country that wants to forget its past? Waltz with Bashir, the breakthrough animated documentary tells exactly this by examining the memory of the nation through stories of former army friends of director Ari Folman. The stories that slowly lead the viewer into the big picture of notorious massacre in Sabra and Shatila refuge camps. A truly fascinating and haunting film.

6. THE WHITE DIAMOND (Werner Herzog, USA, 2004): Herzog’s amazing film about a dream and a daydreamer in all of us.  Breathtaking images of a jungle in Guyana are backdrop for a film about Dr. Graham Dorrington, an airspace engineer and his dream of flying over the jungle in self-built light aircraft.

5. LOST IN LA MANCHA (Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe, UK, 2002): Terry Gilliam as modern Don Quixote in one of the best “making-off’s” in recent years. Shot during the failed attempt of filming “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote”, the film is as funny and entertaining as anything you’ve seen before despite the fact that everything was falling apart for Gilliam and his film crew during the shooting.

4. MAN ON WIRE (James Marsh, USA/UK, 2008): One can not help but admire Philippe Petit, the subject of extraordinary documentary Man on Wire and the author of one of the most impressive stunts of the 20th Century. His dream of walking between Twin Towers on wire is of majestic proportions, and the one that lifts the film above the mere reconstruction of event.

3. THE 3 ROOMS OF MELANCHOLIA (Pirjo Honkasalo, Finland, 2004): Art documentary about Chechen war!! One doesn’t get too many chances to see that and Pirjo Honkasalo’s The 3 Rooms of Melancholia is so beautifully crafted and mysterious that even evokes a mood of Tarkovsky. An important film, both aesthetically and in conveying the message of violation of children rights.

2.  GRIZZLY MAN (Werner Herzog, USA, 2005): Madmen and eccentrics populate Herzog’s film in large and Timothy Treadwell is no exception. As a self proclaimed “guardian of bears” Treadwell meticulously filmed himself during 13 years of his “expeditions” in Alaska among grizzly bears, the fact that ultimately led to his tragic death in the end. Grizzly Man is yet another masterpiece from master director Werner Herzog.

1. THE FOG OF WAR (Errol Morris, USA, 2003): Fifty years of the history of American Military, portrait of the architect of the Vietnam War, ethics of war and lessons learned, or maybe not, are part of Errol Morris’s fascinating film with one of the most fascinating characters, former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. As there is no end in sight on two wars that America is waging at the moment, the echo of McNamara’s words and the strength of the film are becoming even more important.



- from CZECH DREAM

In the second entry in the Ripping Reality series of “essential works,” Tue Steen Müller  directs our attention to the documentary new wave(s) as manifested in Central and Eastern Europe. Indeed, not unlike the way related strains of Direct Cinema/Cinéma Vérité/Free Cinema grew in the last great flourishing of documentary cinema (roughly the mid-1950’s through mid-1960’s), the current movement is very much an international phenomenon.

One characteristic of note in this region is the importance of film schools as hubs for developing much of this new talent. I’m thinking particularly of FAMU in Prague, and in Poland the Andrzej Wadja Master School and the National Film School (Lodz) (and I’m sure there are others). And of course the tremendous social-political upheavals engendered by the post-Communist realities has provided rich material for documentary filmmakers.

You can read more from Tue Steen Müller on the Filmkommentaren blog. One of those smart Danish doc dudes, he’s been a central figure in European documentary culture for over twenty years. He writes:

The last decade of documentaries, a new wave or new waves… well, you can have a look at it from different angles.

As a documentary workshop organizer, both in my time as director of EDN (European Documentary Network) and now as a free lancer, I see more and more upcoming talents who try to fight their ways through endless sessions of pitching projects to public broadcasters, whose editors have been forced to go more and more mainstream. The battle is lost as it was said by ex-leader of Arte France documentary section, Thierry Garrel, and what he meant was that in the most important place for creative documentaries, Arte, the formatting has arrived and will stay. The same can be said for ”Storyville”, where Nick Fraser a decade ago could take risks, where he today is threatened by the BBC wish for higher ratings. Play safe, this is what we have to do nowadays, another Arte editor said to me the other day. Continue reading…

- from FAMILY (Sami Saif, Phie Ambo, Denmark, 2001)

As part of the coalescing Ripping Reality project, we asked festival programmers from around the world to send us lists of contemporary works they consider to be essential to the new documentary. From these we selected ten for a modest retro at this year’s Hot Docs.

Again, Ripping Reality is proceeding from the premise that something special has happened over the past decade or so in documentary film culture. We’re proposing a collaborative endeavor to reflect on this movement at a crucial time in its development.

After a period of phenomenal creative renewal and industrial growth for feature-length documentaries, we seem to be on a tenuous plateau. This isn’t a passive exercise in nostalgia, but a means of actively looking forward by reaching back. That, and, wow, an incredible body of nonfiction filmmaking has been produced over the past decade. Let’s celebrate it.

Here’s a list from Steven Markovitz, Co-Founder, Encounters- South African International Documentary Festival. Steven also produced an omnibus doc, CONGO IN FOUR ACTS, that premiered at Berlin, and will be presented at Hot Docs.

Steven writes:

Documentaries are getting funnier….

VHS KAHLOUCHA (Néjib Belkadhi, Tunisia, 2006)
HOW TO BECOME A HERO (Mladen Matičević, Serbia, 2008)
THE SHUTKA BOOK OF RECORDS (Aleksandar Manic, Czech Republic, Serbia and Montenegro, 2005)
GEORGI AND THE BUTTERFLIES (Andrey Paounov, Bulgaria, 2004)

Documentaries often feel more like feature films….

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (Andrew Jarecki, USA, 2003)
METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER (Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky, USA, 2004)
TOUCHING THE VOID (Kevin MacDonald, UK, 2003)
FAMILY (Sami Saif, Phie Ambo, Denmark, 2001)

Filmmakers are playing with form…..

THE SEVEN SONGS FROM THE TUNDRA (Anastasia Lapsui, Markku Lehmuskallio, Finland, 1999)
HUSH (Victor Kosakovsky, Russia, 2002)
THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS (Lars von Trier, Jorgen Leth, Denmark, 2003)

Political documentaries are getting sharper…..

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (Alex Gibney, USA, 2007)
CUBA: AN AFRICAN ODYSSEY (Jihan El-Tahri, France/Egypt, 2007)
ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (Alex Gibney, USA, 2005)
RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO (Brett Gaylor, Canada, 2009)
THE CORPORATION (Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, Joel Bakan, Canada, 2004)
SACRIFICIO: WHO BETRAYED CHE GUEVARA (Erik Gandini, Tarik Saleh, Sweden, 2001)
OUR BRAND IS CRISIS (Rachel Boynton, USA, 2005)
CHAVEZ: INSIDE THE COUP (Kim Bartley, Donnacha O’Briain, Ireland, 2002)

Last week Hot Docs announced a project that will be launching in a modest way at our 2010 Festival. We’re calling it Ripping Reality, and the intent is to generate a kind of cooperative, traveling symposium, from which we hope to stimulate discussions around the notion of a documentary new wave.

While excited by the prospect of creating spaces (at festivals, online, in publications) to discuss and reflect upon the unprecedented surge in the quantity and quality of creative documentary filmmaking over the past decade or so, I did have some doubts once we actually committed to doing it.  Was this a lame idea? Yet, the consistent excellence of the docs at Sundance TwentyTen (and we’re only halfway into it) reassure me that its a worthy endeavour, and perhaps overdue.

Its one of those Park City cliches that the doc selections are much better bets then the dramatic features….at least creatively, and often in terms of pure entertainment (their market potential/interest is an entirely different matter). Like many festival cliches it holds true this year. WAITING FOR SUPERMAN is one of the most effective advocacy documentaries I’ve ever seen, and it also just happens to be an inventive and very moving storytelling experience. THE OATH, SECRETS OF THE TRIBE, THE TILLMAN STORY, GASLAND, RESTREPO, CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY, TEENAGE PAPARAZZO…all so highly accomplished on their own terms that, when consumed in such concentration, one begins to take their achievements for granted (not to mention a few of the other powerhouses presented here, which I’ve seen over the past months: THE RED CHAPEL, LAST TRAIN HOME, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, HIS AND HERS, SPACE TOURISTS….).

And this is not necessarily, overall, an exceptional year….or, exceptional years for documentary have become the norm.

So, can we call what we’ve seen develop over the past decade a documentary new wave? What are its key attributes aesthetically, politically, socially, industrially? What are the key films, filmmakers? What are the conditions, enablers, and factors behind the explosive growth of documentary filmmaking, festivals, audiences? These are a few of the questions behind Ripping Reality.

Participant Media hosted a drinks/discussion thing here last night, featuring the filmmakers of the impressive four Participant productions being presented at Sundance:  CASINO JACK (Alex Gibney); WAITING FOR SUPERMAN (Davis Guggenheim); COUNTDOWN TO ZERO (Lucy Walker) and the 3-D extravaganza, CANE TOADS: THE CONQUEST (Mark Lewis). Following some general discussion of their current films, each filmmaker remarked on the richness of contemporary documentary as an expressive medium, noting their attraction to the fluidity and expansiveness of the form.

As a programmer (and cinephile), this is what motivated me to focus my attention on documentary ten years ago. I fancied myself a formalist, and docs seemed like the most open, poetic cinematic form. That they also fed the political animal and info junkie in me was a bonus (not to underplay the significance of activism and social justice in driving the new documentary…..it remains at the core of documentary practice and relevance).

Compared to a sense that fiction filmmaking has been relatively stagnant, creatively, in recent years, its easy to see why so much new talent has been drawn into the doc fold (even as many of the new generation of filmmakers move between drama and docs much more effortlessly, and often, then their predecessors). Of course, parallel to the creative possibilities inherent in documentary are many other factors behind its growth, the least of not has been the democratization of filmmaking in general.

AMERICAN MOVIE was out the first year I became a doc programmer at TIFF, and was a film that simply had a different energy around it then most of the other nonfiction films we were presenting at the Festival that year. It, AMERICAN MOVIE, was also hugely popular, selling out and generating long rush lines at each screening.

As a rookie programmer, and doc enthusiast, I was disappointed that generally the docs didn’t seem to draw as well as the fiction films at TIFF (of course, there were always exceptions). The media generally weren’t covering them, and the distributors couldn’t be bothered. Over the next five years that would all change dramatically, both at TIFF and elsewhere, fueled by a wave of astonishing, galvanizing work, much of it debuts:  PRIPYAT, FAMILY, THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE, BENJAMIN SMOKE, SPELLBOUND, STARTUP.COM, CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS, THE CORPORATION, TARNATION, THE YES MEN, CZECH DREAM, SUPERSIZE ME, DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE, GUNNER PALACE….a very quick, top of head list (and omitting some of the obvious, and being U.S. centric)

While this has been an international phenomenon, the contemporary American documentary movement has been a singular force in reimagining and reinvigorating the form, even if some of these developments are beginning to harden into conventions of their own. The Sundance Film Festival has been and remains the single most vital platform for launching U.S. documentaries, the hub of this movement. The good news is that Sundance TwentyTen will add several new works to the contemporary canon of great documentaries…..and I haven’t even seen all of them yet!