Kirsten Johnson: Cameraperson

I have not seen the film yet, but I will, with high expectations because I have heard about it for several years from the maker and have had the privilege to tutor with Kirsten Johnson a couple of times, in Beirut and Jeddah, enjoying her enthusiasm and commitment; she is one who gives to younger colleagues, and now she brings young and old her film about being a travelling documentary cameraperson.

In the realscreen newsletter I received yesterday, Kevin Ritchie has made an interview with Kirsten Johnson, to be strongly recommended, ethical questions are seldom raised, and this is not only for camerapersons. Here is a quote:

… we used to be able to control where the image went and we can’t do it any more. That has different implications to the people we film and even to us as filmmakers. It sent me back into thinking about other situations in which there have been questions around permission and complicity, or where time has changed the meaning of things, so it started bringing up memories of things I had filmed, where we had question marks about choices we’d made. That’s when I reached out to different directors and asked to look at footage to see how far was the space between what I remembered and what was actually in the footage…

Read more: http://realscreen.com/2016/03/18/sxsw-16-cameraperson-turns-lens-on-cinematographer/#ixzz43HtDrdaz

Share your love
Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

Articles: 3925