Cape Town’s screening of the Africa World Documentary Film Festival provides a platform for debate, and shows how documentary films clarify and complicate the answers.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Documentary
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A new book and documentary tell us more about the story behind Men at Work’s song Down Under – and the court case it eventually led to. They also prompt questions about current Australian copyright law.
The Look of Silence eschews its predecessor’s gory glamour and offers a harder message for modern Indonesia.
Most of us are familiar with the National Lampoon films of the 70s and 80s. But this documentary offers insight into the magazine of the same name and the questionable dynamics of modern satire.
It’s important not to conflate and confuse Cobain’s varying personas.
The political docudrama missed a huge opportunity to offer real insight so close to another election.
War history used to be brought to TV audiences by donnish lecturers but historical reconstructions now hold sway. Two recent docos about Gallipoli are hybrid examples of the form that help us better understand the past.
Gabe Polsky’s documentary Red Army opens with the film’s main subject – former NHL and Soviet hockey great Viacheslav (Slava) Fetisov – giving the finger to Polsky while checking his phone. At the film’s…
Why have the landmark psychology experiments of the post-war era proved so enduring? Designed as dramas about human behaviour, experimenters drew on theatrical techniques and tailored their results for…
The taxi driver was mystified by the long queue waiting to go into Leeds Picturehouse cinema on a recent Sunday afternoon. He was clearly surprised when I explained that what turned out to be a capacity…
With eyes fixed on his television screen, Adi Rukun, the main character followed by documentary maker Joshua Oppenheimer in his new film, The Look Of Silence, seems to face a mirror that resurrects a nightmarish…
Can you recall what you were doing last Wednesday between 2.15pm and 2.36pm? Where were you? What did you see? Who did you talk to? How well do you remember those 21 minutes? Now try to recall Wednesday…
In October the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released its new documentary Meet the Mormons to wide theatrical distribution. The film depicts the lives of six individuals – two women and four…
What is a “spoof documentary”? I ask because according to the Daily Mail, that’s what Channel 4 has just commissioned – a film about the “imagined” first 100 days of a UKIP government after a stunning…
The central premise of American director Lynn Hershman Leeson’s film !Women Art Revolution (2010), which screened at the Melbourne Festival over the weekend, is summarised near its conclusion: “When artists…
One of the big attractions at the Melbourne International Film Festival this year is Frank Pavich’s documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013). The film retells the story of cult Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s…
Daniel Ziv’s documentary feature Jalanan (Streetside), currently screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival, is a film that seeks to move its audience. Documentaries sometimes invite viewers…
Urban skyline, as seen from inside a medium-density apartment block, opens Australian director Leah Purcell’s Who We Are: Brave New Clan (2014), which was broadcast on Foxtel’s Bio Channel last night…
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia – by the Australian film-maker Nicholas Wrathall – has been doing the rounds of festival circuits since its release last year, and is currently showing at special…
Louis Theroux knows how to entertain; but the lessons he teaches us have much greater import. The British journalist and broadcaster is back on TV – at least in the UK, for now – with his new series LA…
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Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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PhD Student, Media Studies, Western University
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Senior lecturer in Screen Production and Film and Television Studies, University of Cape Town
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Professor of Russian Culture and Film, Queen Mary University of London
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University of York
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Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of St Andrews
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Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, Convenor: Indigenous Land & Justice Research Group, UNSW Sydney
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Honorary Professor, Edith Cowan University
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Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney
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Lecturer in Screen and Cultural Studies, The University of Melbourne
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Chair of Academic Board, Victoria University
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Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, La Trobe University
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Honorary Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
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Associate Professor in Earth System Science, University of Exeter
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Professor and Director, School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University
