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The World is in Flames, Are Documentary Filmmakers in It?
The title already suggests the tone of the article, which examines how much documentary filmmakers today are occupied with the latest political developments in the world. Are they late with their comments, investigations and political stories? Do filmmakers need some time or distance to reflect on the political changes in the world? Film festivals are anyhow trying very hard to have up-to-date programmes covering issues like terrorism, martyrdom and Islam in its different facades. But do we get challenging, exciting and relevant films on these subjects or are we getting mainly reportage-like stories? Are some directors out of date with their films on dictators like Milošević for example (by Leslie Woodhead), or are they playing safe talking about predictable and expected issues (like the circumcision of women in Islamic countries in The day I will never forget by Kim Longinoto). »Why is there no film on Pim Fortuyn?« asked one of the Dutch participants at the debate on documentary filmmaking during the last IDFA in Amsterdam. »Filmmakers should be the antenna of society picking up the signals from the world today« was stated by someone at the same debate. The world has changed dramatically after September the 11th, but has documentary changed accordingly or does it remain the same? How the small digital camera can be used as a political weapon and how dangerous its accessibility to nearly anyone could be examines the film Seeing is believing by Canadian directors Peter Wintonick and Katerina Cizek. The article discusses this issue too.
One of the chapters in the article is devoted to the evident disappearance of the artistic, poetic documentary, the style that dominated in Eastern European documentary production. Nowadays, Viktor Kossakovsky is one of the lonely survivors of this approach (his latest film Tishe won at IDFA a special mention). How a good, attractive documentary should look like according to the expectations of distributors is explained by one of the rare successful ’dealers’ in documentary world, Jan Rofekamp, whose company Films Transit represents the most important documentary films nowadays. What do commissioning editors of the major European broadcasters want to get from the documentary filmmakers? Are film directors obliged to cater the expectations of the commissioning editors or follow personal creative impulses? Where to sell the film if TV networks label documentaries as not being exciting enough and are inclined to select reportage-like pieces instead? And last but not least, the article reflects on the fact that Western broadcasters rather commission their own filmmakers to cover topics in eastern countries instead of giving opportunities to local film directors. Locals can be expected to be more knowledgeable about the political issues, the history of problems, the country’s traditions, etc., but might not have the ’Western flavour’ in their work. Is that a good policy or is it totally wrong? This question was also discussed at the Croatian film seminar ’Seen by others’.
The text is supplemented with the author’s choice of 10 best documentaries last 10 years.
Rada Šešić |
