Creative Documentaries
Film examples mentioned in videos by Noe Mendelle (Scottish Documentary Institue) on the creative documentary.
Sources:
https://vimeo.com/261524066
https://vimeo.com/274082026
https://vimeo.com/392447673
Sources:
https://vimeo.com/261524066
https://vimeo.com/274082026
https://vimeo.com/392447673
List activity
124 views
• 1 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
36 titles
- DirectorIstván GaálThe first signs of autumn are seen in a landscape along a river. Some villagers are stacking a bed of stone blocks on the river-bank to avoid more eroding. Others are occupied by plowing, fishing or repairing. A small steamboat passes by. In the engine room a stoker is shoveling coal into the oven. Further down the river a small town is passed by the water. A rowing-team is training for coming races. Some biologists are looking at microbes from the water through a microscope. A group of workers are painting a new barge and push it into the river. When a small boy sees a racing boat, he leaves his sand-castle and runs along the river.
- DirectorRobert J. FlahertyStarsAllakariallakAlice NevalingaCunayouIn this silent predecessor to the modern documentary, film-maker Robert J. Flaherty spends one year following the lives of Nanook and his family, Inuits living in the Arctic Circle.
- DirectorMannus FrankenJoris IvensRegen is an experimental documentary film directed by Joris Ivens in 1929. It can be defined as a cinematic-poem. In 2021 Breve Storia Del Cinema restored the film with a new score composed by Nikolas Labrinakos.
- DirectorGeorges RouquierOne year in the life of a French peasant family, whose existence is closely tied with the changing of the seasons.
- DirectorEdgar MorinJean RouchStarsAngeloNadine BallotCatherineA documentary about the everyday lives of ordinary Parisians, done in the style of cinéma vérité.
- DirectorArtavazd PeleshianThe last collaboration of Artavazd Peleshian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov is a film-essay about Armenia's shepherds, about the contradiction and the harmony between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
- DirectorJonas MekasStarsTimothy LearyEd EmshwillerFranz FuenstlerA chronogical about life including self, family, friend, couple and idol in 6 reels
- DirectorJosé Luis GuerínStarsMichael KillaninPadraig O'FeeneyBartley O'FeeneyDocumentary in which the camera of Jose Luis Guerín returns, almost forty years later, to the same places where the mythical film of John Ford 'The quiet Man' was shot. The locality of Innisfree still keeps alive the memory of the filming among the survivors, full of historical references in the other inhabitants, as well as the particular way of seeing the life of the deep Ireland that Ford wanted to portray.
- DirectorJohan van der KeukenThe tools people adopt to try and control nature. In parallel with the early history of Van der Keuken's child.
- DirectorShirley ClarkeStarsJason HollidayShirley ClarkeCarl LeeBlack gay prostitute Jason Holliday is rigorously interviewed on his story and character, revealing nuanced truths about life and art.
- DirectorSergei DvortsevoyThe story of old people living in a forgotten village. Once a week they need to push the carriage with bread for several kilometers towards their gloomy settlement.
- DirectorMaurice BornJean-Daniel PolletA foundry in Perche was established in 1876. This is a final homage paid to the ancestral occupation of foundry men, whose actions have been repeated innumerable times through the years and which are now going to disappear forever.
- DirectorDeborah StratmanStarsJoaquin de la PuenteA night flight through hysteria and police surveillance in suburban America.
- DirectorJoris IvensStarsRoger PigautA travelogue of Valparaiso, Chile, a city built on steep hills. Life is a constant struggle against geography. Neighbourhoods are reached by series of ramps, staircases, and funicular railway elevators. The poorest residents on the hilltops have trouble obtaining water for drinking and washing. There are community dances, a travelling circus, a race course. Boys feed the harbour sealions; a fashionable woman walks her penguin. The ever-present onshore breeze provides fresh air and an ideal environment for kite-flying. The film's second half is in colour, making the switch with the tale of the city's bloody pirate past.
- DirectorEllen HovdeAlbert MayslesDavid MayslesStarsEdith Bouvier BealeEdith 'Little Edie' Bouvier BealeBrooks HyersMeet a mother and daughter, high-society dropouts, reclusive cousins of Jackie O., managing to thrive together amid the decay and disorder of their East Hampton, NY, mansion, making for an eerily ramshackle echo of the American Camelot.Observational documentary
- DirectorClaire SimonObservational documentary
- DirectorFrederick WisemanWELFARE shows the nature and complexity of the welfare system in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of problems that constitute welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly. These issues are presented in a context where welfare workers as well as clients struggle to cope with and interpret the laws and regulations that govern their work and life.Observational documentary
- DirectorKim LonginottoThe practice of female genital mutilation is explored through personal stories of Kenyan women.Observational documentary
- DirectorNick BroomfieldStarsNick BroomfieldEugene Terre'BlancheJ.P. MeyerFrom the award-winning Director Nick Broomfield, The Leader, His Driver, and the Driver's Wife portrays the sinister and comic sides of Eugene Terre'Blanche, leader of the neo-Nazi AWB Afrikaner Party in South Africa.Participatory documentary
- DirectorMarc IsaacsStarsMarc IsaacsDirector Marc Isaacs installs himself in the lift of a typical English tower. People start talking to him and we discover their lives.Participatory documentary
- DirectorSantiago ÁlvarezStarsLena HorneA documentary short about racism in the United States.Poetic documentary
- DirectorJames LongleyStarsMarmar AlhilaliMohammed HaithemSuleiman MahmoudStories from modern day Iraq as told by Iraqis living in a time of war, occupation and ethnic tension.Poetic documentary
- DirectorAgnès VardaStarsFrançois WertheimerAgnès VardaJean La PlancheVarda films and interviews gleaners in France in all forms, from those picking fields after the harvest to those scouring the dumpsters of Paris.Reflexive documentary
- DirectorChris MarkerStarsAmilcar CabralFlorence DelayArielle DombasleA woman narrates the contemplative writings of a seasoned world traveler, focusing on contemporary Japan.Essay documentary
- StarsJennifer FoxIn six hour long episodes, acclaimed filmmaker, Jennifer Fox, maps the world of female life and sexuality today -- from the dramatic turns in her own life to the stories of women around the globe that shed light on the universal issues all women face. Employing a groundbreaking camera technique, called "passing the camera", this powerful series creates a new type of documentary language and storytelling that mirrors the special way women communicate.Filmed diary
- DirectorSergey LoznitsaA Russian town where people are waiting at a bus stop. We get to know some of them from fragments of their conversations.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsNadine BallotDeniseElolaThe arrival of Nadine, a new student, at a school in Abidjan is the starting point for a discussion about interracial relationships.
- DirectorJoaquim JordàStarsWalter CotsMaría EspinosaMario Gas
- DirectorBert HaanstraWho is watching who in the zoo?
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsLello BersaniAlberto MoraviaCesare MusattiDirector Pasolini traverses Italy in 1963 with camera and microphone interviewing people in public places about sex, marriage and gender roles.
- DirectorVictor KossakovskyStarsSvyatoslav KossakovskyIn Russian, "Svyato" means "happy". But it is also a nickname for Svyatoslav, the son of director Kossakovsky, who for two years covered mirrors from Svyato. For the first time in his life, Svyato is going to watch himself on a mirror.
- DirectorOrson WellesGary GraverOja KodarStarsOrson WellesOja KodarFrançois ReichenbachA documentary about fraud and fakery.
- DirectorVittorio De SetaA documentary of Sicilian fisherman at work, rest, and seeking refuge from a storm.
- DirectorLucien Castaing-TaylorVerena ParavelStarsBrian JannelleAdrian GuilletteArthur SmithA documentary shot in the North Atlantic and focused on the commercial fishing industry.
- DirectorMauro HerceThe freighter Fair Lady crosses the ocean. The hypnotic rhythm of its gears reveals the continuous movement of machinery devouring its workers: the last gestures of the old sailors' trade disappearing under the mechanic and impersonal pace of 21st century neocapitalism. Perhaps it is a boat adrift, or maybe just the last example of an endangered species. Although we don't know it, the engines are still running, unstoppable.
- DirectorFélix Dufour-LaperrièreThirty days at sea surrounded by the powerful, majestic waves of the Atlantic Ocean that seem to go on forever. Thirty days in the daily lives of a cargo ship crew that capture some of the hidden beauty of this capricious maritime reality. Transatlantic is a documentary essay that offers itself up like a prayer, full of mystery and languor. The film is strangely and secretly hopeful. In the eyes of the sailors we see both their deep love of life at sea and their exhaustion in the face of the intensity of this cruel and unforgiving environment. The daily and nightly rituals of work and mealtimes trace the intimate, subjective and often silent existence of these men who live at sea, enclosed in the middle of the infinite ocean. Machinery rumbles, waves pound the bow, the hull cracks and squeaks under the pressure of a storm. The immense vastness of the ocean surrounds them in every direction. Officers and sailors work and play, but also dream. The ship is both a metaphor and a microcosm: an island of men in the midst of the great unknown.