The New Yorker - 62 Films That Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking
The idea of what a documentary is has shifted according to what has—and hasn’t—been possible during the past hundred years. But the artistic preoccupations of their creators have not changed radically in that time.
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- DirectorKirsten JohnsonStarsMichael HilowAna HoffmanDick JohnsonA daughter helps her father prepare for the end of his life.
- DirectorNanfu WangJialing ZhangStarsNanfu WangZaodi WangZhimei WangAfter becoming a mother, a filmmaker uncovers the untold history of China's one-child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.
- DirectorCorneliu PorumboiuStarsLaurentiu GinghinaCorneliu PorumboiuThey talk about the beautiful game, but for Laurentiu Ginghina, it's not enough. Football must be modified, streamlined, freed from restraints; corners are to be rounded off, players assigned to zones and subteams, norms revised. In retrospect, he first realized that the rules of football were wrong when he was tackled during a game in his youth, in the summer holidays, on another pitch now covered in snow, but in Vaslui, not Bucharest. The tackle hit so hard it fractured his fibula, a year later his tibia broke too, on New Year's Eve 1987, he had to walk home in the snow and no one helped him. Today he's a local bureaucrat with an uninspiring job, it's no wonder he prefers to talk about the game, his own version of it, to Porumboiu, his friend, the director, who's always listening, asking questions, nearly always in frame. Ginghina's monologues are so rich you might think someone wrote them in advance, they proceed from the same old subject, but never stay in one place. All roads lead to football, but all roads lead away from it too, to land ownership issues, to orange farms in Florida, to political utopia and the traces left by life, to version 2.0, 3.1, 4.7, to infinity.
- DirectorSandi TanStarsJasmine Kin Kia NgPhilip CheahSophia Siddique HarveyA woman explores the events surrounding a film she and her friends began making with a mysterious stranger decades ago.
- DirectorTravis WilkersonStarsTravis WilkersonEd VaughnEd VaughnA documentary murder mystery about the filmmaker's family, set in lower Alabama.
- DirectorRosine Mfetgo MbakamStarsCécile TchanaAn exploratory documentary by a daughter about her mother in Cameroon. Mama Bamiléké tells daughter Rosine Mbakam about arranged marriage, a second wife in the family, poverty and repression by the French.
- DirectorTheo AnthonyStarsTheo AnthonyDan DeaconMatt FouseAcross walls, fences, and alleys, rats not only expose our boundaries of separation but make homes in them. This documentary uses the rat to explore the history of Baltimore.
- DirectorSara FattahiThree women - grandmother, mother and daughter - live hidden away in an old building in Damascus. They have chosen to live in voluntary imprisonment, cutting themselves off from a city in a constant state of siege. As war rages outside, the women wander through the rooms like ghosts who are still alive, with passionate Syrian soap operas as the surreal soundtrack. The first film by a young documentary maker, a symbolic, almost abstract, complex and fierce reflection on the tragic destiny of a country.
- DirectorChantal AkermanStarsChantal AkermanNatalia AkermanSylvaine AkermanFilmmaker Chantal Akerman documents the life of her mother Natalia Akerman, a Polish immigrant and survivor of Auschwitz.
- DirectorKhalik AllahA slow-motion portraiture combined with a soundtrack of snippets of people's conversations and interviews.
- DirectorRobert GreeneStarsBrandy BurreDaytona LoveMichael TomlinsonActress Brandy Burre gave up a recurring role on a TV series to start a family. Years later, her domestic life crumbles when she tries to reclaim her former career.
- DirectorMojtaba MirtahmasbJafar PanahiStarsJafar PanahiIgiMrs. GheiratIt's been months since Jafar Panahi, stuck in jail, has been awaiting a verdict by the appeals court. By depicting a day in his life, Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb try to portray the deprivations looming in contemporary Iranian cinema.
- DirectorRithy PanhStarsRandal DoucJean-Baptiste PhouRithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.
- DirectorCindy KleineA journey through a disastrous 59-year marriage. Drawing on a lifetime of her family's home movies and interviews made over 12 years, filmmaker Cindy Kleine mixes reportage, cinema verite, and animation to uncover family secrets and tell a story that could not be shown publicly as long as her father was alive.
- DirectorAgnès VardaStarsAgnès VardaAndré LubranoBlaise FournierAgnès Varda explores her memories, mostly chronologically, with photographs, film clips, interviews, reenactments, and droll, playful contemporary scenes of her narrating her story.
- DirectorWang BingStarsFengming HeFengming looks back at over 30 years of her life...
- DirectorCharles BurnettStarsHerbert ApthekerAyuko BabuCharles BurnettThe story and legacy of the enigmatic leader of the notorious 1831 homicidal slave revolt in Virginia, along with reviews of works about him, are explored; twentieth century civil rights discussed and cultural relativism mentioned.
- StarsJean-Luc GodardAlain CunyJulie DelpyAn 8-part documentary chronicling the history of cinema, examining the history of the concept of cinema and how both relates to the 20th century.
- DirectorOmar AmiralayStarsOmar AmiralayMohamed MalasOR THE FIRST TIME I HEARD OF ISRAEL. A man recollects the conflict in the middle east through his personal memory. In this short documentary, Amiralay reflects on the first time he heard of Israel. Through recorded conversations with filmmaker Mohamed Malas, both Amiralay and Malas share their own unique stories and experiences about Israel and Israeli occupation. In the company of fellow Syrian filmmaker Mohammad Malas, the ground-breaking director Omar Amiralay revisits the ruins of the destroyed Golan village of Quneytra, occupied by Israel and then abandoned following the 1973 war.
- DirectorLourdes PortilloStarsOfelia AlmeidaOscar Ruiz AlmeidaJesus de la TorreOscar is found dead from a gunshot wound, whose wife believes he committed suicide. His nephew, Portillo, suspects that it was murder and investigates the death with no help from the authorities.
- DirectorJan OxenbergStarsJean BartoliniRuth BlochTim BradenDocumentary on family issues of elders, aging, and death.
- DirectorMark RappaportStarsEric FarrLauren BacallCyd CharisseDocumentary about the career and eventual death from AIDS of actor Rock Hudson.
- DirectorTony BubaStarsTony BubaSal CaruWerner HerzogTony Buba, a film maker from Braddock, Pennsylvania, tells the story of his hometown's decline (along with the rest of the steel mill towns along the Monongahela River) while he dreams of making higher budget films. The picture documents, in a lighthearted way, the community anxiety and activism that accompanied the failure of the steel industry around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Sweet Sal the street hustler tries to make it big in Tony's movies.
- DirectorKazuo HaraStarsKenzo OkuzakiRiichi AikawaMasaichi HamaguchiA documentary following Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old WW2 veteran notorious for his protests against Emperor Hirohito, as he tries to expose the needless executions of two Japanese soldiers during the war.
- DirectorClaude LanzmannStarsSimon SrebnikMichael PodchlebnikMotke ZaïdlClaude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors.