Food for thought: This text is written by a student from the Zelig Film School for Documentary at the exam in June after one year of the three year long studies. Philipp Griess has chosen camera for his further studies.

I do not insist on a clear distinction between fiction and documentary. I do not believe in definitions of art. It helps maybe for analyzing, I don’t believe that it helps for doing films. For me Werner Herzog and his opinions in these discussions are a very important reference. I think the main point of (documentary) filmmaking is still to tell an interesting story, that someone else can identify with. So it is almost always about people, or the fate of someone. Films about people impress me, but in the end the story is bigger than just this one biography. It is what Herzog does in “Grizzly Man” or “White Diamond” and it is the story of the young Danish female pilot (“Smiling in a War Zone”) who flies to Kabul to teach a young girl flying. This is also the films of Michael Moore. And for sure “Darwin’s Nightmare”.

New documentary film is also the set up (dt: Inszenierung) of happenings (“Czech Dream” – great film), of situations (“MegaCities” – the beautiful sequence when the Mexican superman dictates a letter to the world, “The heritage of the world is the Abstruse”) and the creation of pictures like in “Black Sun”, “Working Mans Death”.

Film (like every art form) is very closely connected to the spirit of a time. So especially doc films should be open for graphics, drawings, sounds and music in every style, strange editing (“Ghosts of City Soleil”, “Mondovino”) and any other irritation – if it helps to tell what has to be told.

But the documentary film represents from my point of view still a way to tell things the public doesn’t know about – or does not want to know about. It has to be open for more journalistic/historical approaches (“Terrors Advocate” is a good example, or “The most secret place on earth” about the American hidden war in Cambodia).

June 2008

www.zeligfilm.it Still: It is what Herzog does in “White Diamond”..

Food for thought. This text is written by a student from the Zelig Film School for Documentary at the exam in June after one year of the three year long studies. János Richter has chosen direction for his further studies:

Moderne Dokumentarfilme bewegen sich weg von der klassischen Reportage-Form und bedienen sich aller Stilmittel und Techniken, die schon im Spielfilm oder verwandten Disziplinen wie Literatur und Musik verwendet werden. Sie versuchen authentisch, nicht aber objektiv (z.B. in Sinne des direct cinema) zu sein und haben eine eigene Handschrift. Sie verzichten, wenn sinnvoll, auf Interviews, erklaeren nicht mehr als notwendig und lassen dem Zuschauer Raum fuer eigene Interpretationen, etwa durch ein offenes Ende. Fiktionale Elemente oder gar Mischformen aus Dokumentar- und Spielfilm (wie z.B. bei Larry Clarke) koennen bereichernd, sollten aber als solche zu erkennen sein. Filme, die dem nahe kommen, sind z.B. die von Phie Ambo.

http://www.zeligfilm.it/

Food for thought. This text is written by a student from the Zelig Film School for Documentary at the exam in June after one year of the three year long studies. George Bocher has chosen direction for his further studies:

The essence of what documentary can be today is shown in the Canadian  film “Manufactured Landscapes” (Jennifer Baichwal) in the very first shot. A very long shot, a never-ending camera-travel through a Chinese factory-hall.

It’s the most impressive dolly shot I have ever seen. Why is it so great?

Because it shows the conflict between our expectations for fictional representation of reality and the representation in documentaries/reportage.

The usual standard-pan inside the hall we would have seen in a TV-reportage would have made it easy for the viewer to swallow the image, to sort it intohis/her categories. It is through this dolly shot that we experience the full dimensions of the hall and the nature of the labour in it.

The sense of a motivated travel of the eye that the dolly usually promises is turned into a nightmarish caricature as we only see the ever-repeating landscape of people at machines.  Strangely it is the use of means from fiction-films that makes this reality more real for us again. I think this is one of the paradox documentary makers have to live with today.

http://www.zeligfilm.it/

Food for thought. This German text is written by a student from the Zelig Film School for Documentary at the exam in June after one year of the three year long study. Kathrin Dietzel has chosen editing for her further studies:

Ich denke ein Dokumentarfilmer sollte die Faehigkeit haben, Vertrauen zu anderen Menschen aufzubauen. Er sollte bereit sein etwas von sich preiszugeben und eine Vertrauensbasis schaffen koennen, in der auch ein Gegenueber sich trotz Filmequipment und Unsicherheit oeffnen kann.

Ein Dokumentarfilmer sollte offen sein, seine Ansichten und Ueberzeugungen immer wieder in Frage stellen und ueberpruefen und keine vorschnellen Urteile faellen. Nur so kann meiner Meinung nach ein Film entstehen, der einerseits persoenlich ist, wirklich eintauchen kann in die Lebensrealitaet eines anderen Menschen und andereseits diesen Menschen mit Respekt darstellt, ohne sensationslustig oder voyeuristisch zu sein oder zu wirken.

http://www.zeligfilm.it/