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For three days in early March 2024, the Romanoff Center for Russian Studies at the University of Oklahoma hosted acclaimed Ukrainian film director Sergei Loznitsa for a series of meetings [...]

This study contributes to the ongoing historical examination of ecological and postcolonial questions in Latin America through the lens of new media genre narratives. Early 20th‐century documentary films of Argentine Patagonia institutionalised a natural binary opposition, positioning those challenging colonial power relations based on natural resources against an ideal and achievable future. These narratives sought to shape dialogues and subjectivities about the region, defining the boundaries within which claims and changes were acknowledged. From this perspective, this research aims to advance the historical examination of the emergence of subnational future narratives and their connection with power dynamics in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The West Africa One Health project is a multi-country project designed to utilise the One Health approach and deploy the Community Action Networks (CAN), a concept rooted in the principles of community-based participatory research, to improve knowledge of high-risk communities on zoonoses. The majority of emerging zoonoses occur at the human-wildlife interface, of which wildlife hunters and traders are critical stakeholders. We assessed the effectiveness of a CAN-based intervention involving the use of a video documentary and case studies as model tools in improving the knowledge of zoonoses among wildlife hunters and traders in Epe, an established hunting community in Lagos State, Nigeria. A single-group pre-post design involving a total of 39 consenting registered wildlife stakeholders was adopted. A pre-tested, semi-structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to obtain data on the participant's sociodemographic characteristics, awareness level, and knowledge of zoonoses pre and post CAN-based intervention. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics McNemar and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests at a 5% level of significance. The mean age of the participants was 46.7 ± 10.9 years. Most (76.9%) identified as male and had at least secondary education (89.7%). The number of participants who were aware that diseases could be contracted from animals and that it could be through inhalation and close contact increased significantly from 13 (33.3%), 2 (5.1%), and 9 (23.1%) pre-intervention to 37 (94.9%), 11 (28.2%), and 21 (53.8%) post-intervention, respectively. The overall median knowledge score increased significantly from 1 (Interquartile range (IQR): 0–2) pre-intervention to 3 (IQR: 2–4) post-intervention. The CAN-based intervention involving the use of a video documentary and case studies as model tools was effective in improving the knowledge of zoonoses among wildlife hunters and traders in the hunting community and may be beneficial for future practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1980s, the French documentary field opened up to a number of autobiographical practices which redrew the frontiers of the cinematic landscape. L'Heure exquise ('The exquisite hour') (René Allio, 1980), Lettres d'amour en Somalie ('Love letters in Somalia') (Frédéric Mitterrand, 1982) and Mourir à trente ans ('Dying at thirty') (Romain Goupil, 1982) are the notable signs of this change. This shift was confirmed in the years that followed, as borne out by La Pudeur ou l'Impudeur/Modesty and Shame (Hervé Guibert, 1992), Rome désolée/Desolate Rome (Vincent Dieutre, 1995) and Je suis venue te dire ('I came to tell you') (Laetitia Masson, 1997), to name but a few. These films are investigations and confessions that tell stories of love or sickness, happiness or sorrow. Faced with grief and reparation, the act of creation is motivated by a quest and a recovery of the self. In the 2000s, initiatives diversified, based (sometimes politically) on the societal context of the period within which the filmmakers worked (family, genre, etc.). In this article, the author assembles a three-stage filmic cartography and defines issues at stake in this intimate autobiographical dimension forged over 40-odd years by French documentary films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some Kind of Liberating Effect is a documentary dedicated to research freedom in the academic study of religion in Central and Eastern Europe. This essay examines the techniques used to develop a script and a screenplay. It will show how the documentary integrates screenwriting with the question of freedom of research in this academic field and region. First, the essay presents the raw footage filmed between 2022 and 2023, then the screenwriting techniques used for plotting a story. Finally, it discusses the shift from the history of the academic field to storytelling, particularly with regard to the frame story included in the film. In conclusion, it presents some remarks concerning the interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches between religious studies and the film industry implemented in the documentary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-asserts the politically contested status of new media as a site of both conspiracy theories and counterhegemonic narratives through analyses of Dylan Avery's Loose Change and Adam Curtis' The Power of Nightmares. I outline how Loose Change's form reflects its origins in online research, and how the web's structures influence the film's conspiracy theory narrative. This is compared to the production and distribution of The Power of Nightmares. The juxtaposition of images and ideas (the 'and then ... ') provides an example of the web's formal influence. Exploring Curtis' use of the BBC archive, barriers to distributing his counternarrative, and the appropriation of his films through online channels, I inform a discussion of the ways new media provides a crucial resistance to hegemonic narratives. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard's account of September 11th, I argue that both texts must be understood as dialectical responses to the official narratives around 9/11 and the War on Terror. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean documentary film has historically both been designed as a contribution to political life and also as a creative exploration in the growing film industry. Documentary in the service of political mobilizing, which occupied a large place in early documentary, has evolved into a wide range of expression, without losing the overall character of social commitment. As seen at the Jeonju Film Festival 2024, documentary work continues the longstanding politically-engaged character of South Korean documentary, while demonstrating sophisticated approaches to the challenge of developing narratives of remembrance. This work is undertaken with techniques ranging from animation to strategic use of silence and absence, reflexive archival use and memoir. Documentary choices testify to professionalization and innovation in the field and also to the enduring identity of documentary filmmakers as storytellers of a fraught, contested and still in formation Korean identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The air sustains, connects and conditions our lives and has been of growing relevance to social scientists adopting an atmospheric approach to social life. Nonetheless, in screen studies, air's critical uptake has so far been limited to narrative cinema, leaving it undertheorized in non-fiction filmmaking. In this paper, I introduce theories of the air that flow from the broader rise of atmospheric socio-aesthetic theories and suggest that it is possible to understand the air as an agent in the relationship between a filmmaker and their practice, and the film and its viewers. To make this argument, I first present a theoretical orientation to air as it is implicated in the non-fiction filmmaking process, before considering how the air has been understood in film scholarship, and how it has been taken as a subject of filmmakers working in experimental traditions. I then consider two bodies of non-fiction filmmaking through this aethereal lens. The first is Margaret Tait and her concept of 'breathing' with the camera, and the second is Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah's And Still, It Remains (2023). In these analyses, I argue that thinking aethereally allows us to consider the co-construction of documentarian, document and viewer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study is concerned with the possibility of reframing the visibility of migrants onscreen in Želimir Žilnik's documentary films. It is claimed that Žilnik's selected works such as the Kennedi trilogy open up a space for reversing the lens of the dominant hegemonies of viewing by enacting a productive instability in performing their actual lives on the one side but also provoking the spectators to reconstruct stories in the same way the protagonists do. In including the voice of the migrant, as well as (de)constructing his own presence, we can understand Žilnik's films as formulating a political background in the very logic of the frame that disrupts self-colonising or balkanising perspective as it gives voice to those that were usually silent, silenced or implicated. The study proposes a possible space, both physical and epistemological for the articulation of the right to be seen in films that thematise those usually found on the outskirts of social visibility by proposing that complex narratives and images irreducible to the general idea of 'the Balkans' can be a transformative social and cultural gesture as it rearticulate power-positions of those marginalised of the level of counter-narrative, counter-archive, and the counter-image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of approximately 700,000 Hungarian POWs who spent many years in Soviet forced labor camps was an absolute taboo under Communism. It gained public attention only in the aftermath of its collapse. Dozens of memoirs were published, alongside a few reports and documentary films. Additionally, organizations were established to preserve the memory of the former prisoners. However, early representations received little attention in the 1990s and 2000s, even in historical writing. The government declared 2016 and 2017 as Gulag Memorial Years, which provided new impetus for research in this field. New sources were made available through recollections. Regarding historical policy, the government incorporated the prisoners’ stories into its anti Western memory narrative, claiming that the USA was responsible for the tragic fate of the prisoners. However, these suggestions have not yet infiltrated academic historical discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses The Cannibal and I Killed Eighteen, KTN's two documentary Case Files that profile Geoffrey Matheri and Philip Onyancha's confessions as serial killers. With the hindsight that documentaries generally document true crime stories, the discussion closely follows the journalist's narration vis-à-vis the victims' confessions, truths, and evidences and it attempts a closure to Dennis Onsarigo's observation that each of the two cases is still a case open. The study is informed by two observations; first, despite the victims' glaring testimonies of their macabre killings, both were jailed for the lesser allegations of attempted rape crimes and assaults, and second, though Onyancha publicly confessed to have murdered eighteen, he still contemplates writing a book 'The Untold Story' of which he says the book will allow Kenyans to know the truth, Guided by Narrative Theories, this study activates 'invisible' histories and 'inaudible' stories and it considers how the aesthetic qualities of the documentary and production process place the works between their actuality and the supposed reality in the outside world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the political positioning of the people and the cultural image of the Chinese nation through the lens of the Social-historical Scientific Documentary Films of China's ethnic minorities (hereafter referred to as "the Ethno-documentaries") by restoring the problem to the site of the investigation of humanities and social sciences and the General Surveys on (Folk) Arts in the early years of the establishment of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s. Through detailed analysis of specific Ethno-documentary films, this paper explores how the social sciences conducted its "Social and Historical Investigation of China's Ethnic Minorities" via the medium of film to convey the advanced social concepts and ideological work of the new regime through the historical narrative of art and politics. This study highlights three key points. First, the "Chinese nation" as a modern political concept dates its origins back to the 1920s with the emergence of the "National Heritage Reorganization Movement" and the "Doubting Antiquity School." However, it was only through the medium of the Ethno-documentaries that this concept was visually and aurally represented in films for the first time, which draws our attention to the fact that the entry point for understanding modern China lies in discerning the relationship between culture and politics. Second, when discussing the relationship between culture and politics, this study juxtaposes the Ethno-documentaries and "art for workers-peasants-soldiers," which developed during the same period. These two forms of art focus respectively on national history and the suffering of the lower classes of society, and it is this intertextual nature of the historical narrative that jointly anchors the cultural and historical view of New China. Lastly, historical view is the core of the humanities, social sciences, and art disciplines in New China. Previous studies have mainly attributed certain phenomena to the "politicization" or "pan-politicization" of a particular historical period due to disciplinary barriers and cultural trauma and have stopped discussing such topics in depth. In contrast, the significance of the political aesthetics in the Ethno-documentaries is to have transformed classical Chinese artistic language into a modern one to represent the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. It also raises a question of re-sinicization of many modern political issues that have persisted until now: How do today's Chinese art works vividly depict the prosperity of this country and its hardworking and courageous people? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021 and 2022, we engaged in a collaborative filmmaking project at Maple Farm, a rewilding site in Southeast England. The project resulted in After Wilding, a speculative documentary film that explores different perspectives on rewilding and the future of Maple Farm and natures in the United Kingdom more broadly. After Wilding envisions what it would be like to visit Maple Farm in June 2042; to do so, we used 360° imagery of the present site and computer-generated visualisations of possible future landscape features. These visualisations were underscored by three narrative vignettes reflecting on different interventions and perspectives on the site. This article describes creating After Wilding as a three-part process – attunement, perspectives and synthesis. We then reflect on the potential opportunities that digital technologies offer for collaborative speculations between researchers, artists and practitioners for geographical praxis and conservation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the use of physical and streaming documentary film collections available in a mid-sized academic library, specifically relating to the length of time that documentary films may remain relevant for curricular use. Design/methodology/approach: The authors defined documentary film for the purposes of the study and created data sets of our non-fiction film holdings. They weeded out titles that could not be defined as documentaries and ran use reports for streaming and physical collections. They also used Power BI to visualize the data more clearly. Findings: The authors found that documentary films could remain useful for 25 years, with certain films remaining relevant even longer. Originality/value: These findings indicate that purchasing or licensing streaming documentary film packages provides value, including older content. In addition, the authors will continue to make purchases of physical DVD or Blu Ray content when necessary and keep these collections up to 30 years before heavily weeding them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After placing the subject of the teacher’s cinematic representation into context, the article examines Sándor Sára’s first so-called “talking head” documentary, Néptanítók (1981), from a cultural and visual anthropological perspective. The research intuitively posits the work as a (historical) anthropological film. The film’s role as a “site of memory” becomes prominent, alongside the performativity of oral history and the theoretical issues related to the “cinema of faces”. The article aims to reinterpret Sándor Sára’s statement that this is a “confession-type film” and, on the other hand, to place Néptanítók – which has been relatively underexplored – more nuancedly within both the oeuvre (including its relationship with Sára’s documentary peak performance, Krónika) and the history of Hungarian documentary filmmaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution consists of two new translations of Francesco Pasinetti's essays on documentary filmmaking. In 'The meaning of documentaries' (1934) Pasinetti rhapsodizes on the cinema of Joris Ivens, Dziga Vertov, Robert J. Flaherty, among others, arguing that contemporary Italian documentarians are capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with these remarkable foreign filmmakers. He suggests that the documentary form is an invaluable pedagogical tool and should receive more support from the governing bodies. In 'The sense of documentary' (1941), Pasinetti outlines his poetic and practical principles for documentary filmmaking that truly possesses 'the sense of cinema'. He insists on the need for a central theme, marked figurative continuity, intensive research and planning stages – including best exhibition practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Picture a Scientist," a documentary featuring stories and research about bias in STEM, reached a large international audience. Yet, the extent to which this type of engaging media can impact gender bias remains unclear. In a unique collaboration between film creators and researchers, the current large-scale field studies explored whether "Picture a Scientist" functioned as an intervention and persuasive message targeting sexism in STEM. Study 1 found viewers who indicated more knowledge and stronger emotions, perspective-taking, and transportation after the film were more inspired to continue learning sexism in STEM and combating unfair treatment, suggesting the documentary engaged both classic and narrative persuasion processes. Employing a quasi-experimental design, Study 2 demonstrated that compared to those who had not watched the film (but intended to), participants who had viewed the film indicated higher awareness of gender bias, stronger intentions to address this bias, and participants in leadership reported stronger intentions to enact inclusive policies (for example, making it easier to report mistreatment). Our findings suggest that the use of this documentary may be a relatively low-cost and easily scalable online intervention, particularly when organizations lack resources for in-person workshops. These studies can help inform organizational trainings using this or similar documentaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Georgian documentary film making has a rather rich tradition. The stated thesis is confirmed by the first full length documentary film "Akaki's trip to Racha-Lechkhumi" recognized all over the world (1912, Director Vasil Amashukeli). Origination of the documentary film in Georgia is solely connected with the name of Vasil Amashukeli. A history started earlier in 1908 continues exitance in propagandistic tongs resulted by the Soviet occupation of 1921. Surely, the sovietisized Georgian documentary film making was not able to avoid the dictate's influence. Ideologized news films were reflecting interpretated reality, which, in fact, had no any connection with the political, economic and cultural processes happening in the socius. Holidays, parades, urban development, agricultural achievements, industry and production - all this was delivered to the mass in the form of a documentary film and created ideal demonstration of the Soviet living conditions. However, despite of repressions Georgian authors managed to create the material carrying definite visual and content-related values that for the contemporary society with a definite accuracy revives daily routines of that period, challenges existing in front of the country, socioeconomic background, political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a response to the increasingly violent backlash against trans rights, trans cinema must look beyond representation and seek to foster community solidarity and care. New trans cinematic works must resist conventional modes of representation and instead provide a form of care and validation to trans audiences. This paper focuses on recent trans documentaries "Orlando, My Political Biography" (Paul Preciado, 2023) and "Desire Lines" (Jules Rosskam, 2024) which not only depict trans experiences but also challenge traditional filmmaking techniques to foster a t4t (trans-for-trans) ethos. This ethos rejects stealth ways of looking, in which one assimilates seamlessly into cisgender society post-transition. Instead, Orlando and Desire Lines continually disrupt the binary gaze by embracing a process-oriented filmmaking style that reminds the audience the image, like gender, is constructed. Such work not only has the potential to change the socio-political landscape, it radically prioritizes supporting trans lives over instructing cisgender viewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FQ editor-at-large B. Ruby Rich reports from the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Skipping the "grand old men" (Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, David Cronenberg's Shrouds, and Paul Schrader's Oh, Canada) competing in the main competition, Rich concentrated instead on the festival's other sections and its renegade outlier, the Quinzaine (Directors' Fortnight). Rich describes her festival highlights, including Jacques Audiard's faux-Mexican, trans-phantasmagoric, all-singing, all-dancing confection Emilia Pérez along with a number of documentaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Masha Shpolberg introduces and interviews Ukrainian filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk. They discuss the overall arc of Tsilyk's career: her early films, her breakthrough documentary, The Earth Is Blue as an Orange (2020), her first fiction feature, Rock. Paper. Grenade (2022), and her current project—an animated documentary about her own family's experience of Russia's war against Ukraine. Tsilyk reflects on what it means to her to be both a writer and a filmmaker, the capabilities of the two mediums, and her growing role as a cultural ambassador for Ukraine. The conversation concludes with reflections on the state of cultural production in Ukraine today and what the postwar future might look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author explores current perspectives on contemporary art projects through the concept of the archive. By applying a theoretical framework termed "concern for the archive", the author aims to elucidate complex relationships between the archive as a medium and the situated practices of contemporary art. The paper examines contemporary art as a form of temporary memory storage, particularly through the analysis of Tomáš Rafa's documentary films. It addresses two key questions: What specific aspects of concern for the archive can be identified in political or activist contemporary art? How does concern for the archive differ from archival care, and why is this distinction important?. In the first section, the author discusses the "zones of contact" in political activist art, highlighting the formation of dialogical structures and distinguishing them from scientific research and purely documentary creation. The second section traces the layers of artistic training in Grzegorz Kowalski's renowned studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where the author gained experience in organizing and documenting collective workshops. This part reveals the specifics of documentary video creation with its activist and archival overlaps. In the final sections, the author outlines a theoretical framework for interpreting documentary video pieces in relation to the concepts of archive, cultural trauma, and cultural therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the reflection of contemporary artist Muhanned Cader about Sri Lanka. Topics mentioned include a description of Cader's exhibition depicting colonial myths and modes of visuality relating to biology, meteorology, photography and cartography, the history of Ceylon, and a brief highlights of Cader's educational and career background.

The article discusses the multimedia documentation of architecture. Topics mentioned include the digital restorations of historic sites, the use of remote sensing as digital tools for data gathering, the increase in depiction of architecture and design in film festivals, and the release of architectural documentaries on social media YouTube.

Globalization has transformed design practices, with multiculturalism influencing product and service development significantly. Incorporating global perspectives into design teams can be challenging. Learn how short documentary films inform and inspire designers to understand other cultures more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes several documentary films on youth labor actions in socialist Yugoslavia, covering different stages of their organization. The analysis begins with educational films that outline recommended practices for the successful organization of youth labor actions. It continues with two films, shot 20 years apart, portraying international experiences of youth labor actions. These films, "Witnesses to the truth" (Svjedoci istine) from 1950 and "American woman" (Amerikanka) from 1970, articulate criticism in different ways, in keeping with when the films were made. The last film analyzed, Ho-Ruk! Ho-Ruk! Ho-Ruk! – filmed in 1974 – reflects on 30 years of experience of youth labor actions. Periodizing the films in this way presents three different views of youth labor actions, namely what they should become, what they are, and what they used to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract This paper discusses the political positioning of the people and the cultural image of the Chinese nation through the lens of the Social-historical Scientific Documentary Films of China’s ethnic minorities (hereafter referred to as “the Ethno-documentaries”) by restoring the problem to the site of the investigation of humanities and social sciences and the General Surveys on (Folk) Arts in the early years of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s. Through detailed analysis of specific Ethno-documentary films, this paper explores how the social sciences conducted its “Social and Historical Investigation of China’s Ethnic Minorities” via the medium of film to convey the advanced social concepts and ideological work of the new regime through the historical narrative of art and politics. This study highlights three key points. First, the “Chinese nation” as a modern political concept dates its origins back to the 1920s with the emergence of the “National Heritage Reorganization Movement” and the “Doubting Antiquity School.” However, it was only through the medium of the Ethno-documentaries that this concept was visually and aurally represented in films for the first time, which draws our attention to the fact that the entry point for understanding modern China lies in discerning the relationship between culture and politics. Second, when discussing the relationship between culture and politics, this study juxtaposes the Ethno-documentaries and “art for workers-peasants-soldiers,” which developed during the same period. These two forms of art focus respectively on national history and the suffering of the lower classes of society, and it is this intertextual nature of the historical narrative that jointly anchors the cultural and historical view of New China. Lastly, historical view is the core of the humanities, social sciences, and art disciplines in New China. Previous studies have mainly attributed certain phenomena to the “politicization” or “pan-politicization” of a particular historical period due to disciplinary barriers and cultural trauma and have stopped discussing such topics in depth. In contrast, the significance of the political aesthetics in the Ethno-documentaries is to have transformed classical Chinese artistic language into a modern one to represent the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. It also raises a question of re-sinicization of many modern political issues that have persisted until now: How do today’s Chinese art works vividly depict the prosperity of this country and its hardworking and courageous people?

María Sojob, a Tsotsil filmmaker, visited the University of Oklahoma in November 2023 as part of the Mayan Film Festival organized by Carol Rose Little, sponsored in part by WLT. [...]

High-quality translation from a foreign language plays a key role in the commercial and creative success of any film. Due to the growing need for this type of translation, highlighting the specifics of documentary film translation will be useful for novice documentary translators and professionals interested in various types of translation. Background. Documentary is a widespread and one of the most interesting genres of cinema for people of all ages. Subtitling as a type of audiovisual translation allows viewers not only to get closer to the original story of the event broadcast in another language, but also to hear authentic speech and other elements of the video. Purpose. The purpose of this article is to identify the specifics of the subtitled translation of documentaries and to identify the translation transformations used in the translation of such a film genre. To do this, it is necessary to identify the essence of subtitling; consider the requirements for the compiling subtitling, identify the difficulties that translators may face in the process of subtitled translation; analyze translation transformations in the subtitled translation of documentaries. Materials and methods. The practical material for the study was the short documentary film Ancient Egypt explained in 12 minutes, published on the YouTube video hosting channel Captivating History. To solve the tasks set, both theoretical and practical research methods were used: analysis of literature on translation theory and subtitled translation as a special aspect of audiovisual translation; analysis of translation transformations during subtitled translation of the documentary film Ancient Egypt explained in 12 minutes. Results. The results of the study showed that subtitling is a complex and creative task for a translator. Subtitles for films allow you to create an emotional contact between the reader and the author of the film, to focus his attention on important information and, most importantly, to preserve the authenticity of the documentary material. In the subtitled translation of documentary films, it was revealed that the most common transformations are transliteration, omission, generalization and functional substitution. Practical implications. The results of the research can be used by novice translators and professional translators when translating documentaries.

AbstractAs the need for changes in transportation grows, the transition to sustainable mobility is being envisioned in varying ways. Shifting from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to electric vehicles (EVs), along with changing mobility habits, will both be necessary. What has been neglected from the study is the role of sport in aiding this transition. Motorsport has long served dual roles of serving as a technological testbed and center for culture formation around street cars. Coupling one of the largest sporting platforms in the world with the missions of climate change awareness and technological advancement, two racing leagues are catalyzing the move to electric mobility. Formula E and Extreme E have released documentary films showcasing their future goals. To understand the role of electric racing in shaping the transition to sustainable mobility, this paper uses a grounded theory approach to identify relevant themes of the EV transition, while a narrative analysis is used to foreground the overall storytelling aspect of the ecocinematic films. The racing EV emerges as a site of collective collaboration: meeting the needs of the future within the framing of traditional motorsport, and merging traditionally masculinist narratives of automotive technology with prototypically feminized environmentalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Audiovisual media has become an integral part of conservation education strategies, with the potential not only to communicate information but also to impact on its viewers perceptions and attitudes towards a particular subject. Despite this potential, few studies have evaluated either the use of film for primate conservation initiatives or the wider impact of participatory film production. Our study evaluates the impact of a participatory documentary film about historic human-primate coexistence in the Los Tuxtlas region, Veracruz, Mexico, to improve people’s knowledge, perception, and attitudes towards the local primate species, Alouatta palliata and Ateles geoffroyi. Our study took place in six rural localities, in four of which a participatory film-making process was undertaken, involving production workshops and public screenings; two localities were intentionally left out as control groups. People’s knowledge, perception, and attitudes towards primates were assessed through randomized sampling using a questionnaire prior (n = 419) and following (n = 223) the presentation of the documentary. Results indicate a minimal but positive shift in participant’s attitudes and perceptions, with statistically significant increases in primate knowledge scores. While the participatory approach offers promise, further exploration and refinement are essential for effective conservation education. The study highlights the need for diverse and locally based perspectives in developing conservation education materials and programs to foster meaningful engagement and drive primate conservation efforts forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into the concept of transnational metacinema, which refers to films that depict film production across borders. It explores various examples of transnational metacinema, including documentaries that reflect on their own use of archival footage, cannibal horror films featuring documentarian protagonists, and Hollywood satires. The article examines the themes of colonization and exploitation present in these films and discusses how they complicate the idea that reflexivity disrupts viewing pleasure. It also addresses the ethical issues of film production, particularly in relation to Indigenous and marginalized populations. The article argues for the relevance of transnationality in understanding the politico-ethics of the contemporary film industry and raises questions about the ethical implications of these films and the preoccupations of film philosophy in relation to the lives of those being represented. The text concludes by discussing American satirical shock comedies that use appropriation to comment on appropriation. Overall, the article explores the complexities and responsibilities of transnational metacinema and emphasizes the need for a more thoughtful and empathetic approach to representing and understanding the experiences of others. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses two experimental documentaries, "Aboio" and "Sweetgrass," that challenge traditional ethnographic and narrative conventions. These films emphasize the interdependence between humans, non-human animals, and the natural environment, blurring the boundaries between different genres and perspectives. The filmmakers aim to create an immersive and authentic experience for viewers by immersing themselves in the landscapes and communities they film. The films also explore the embodied experience of cultural practices and challenge traditional notions of authenticity and representation. [Extracted from the article]

This article, titled "Editor's Introduction: Structures of Feeling," is part of the journal Positions. It explores various cultural movements and works that respond to different constraints. The article begins by discussing the unrecognized legacies of far-right movements in archival collections and ends with a critique of nationalist ideologies through the documentary medium. The collection of articles covers topics such as Korean proletarian melodrama, Japanese literature in English translation, Chinese feminist iconography, and the production of finance-themed novels in 1990s China. The articles highlight alternative formations of affects and modes of thought that emerge in the cultural sphere. [Extracted from the article]

This article focuses on winter pedestrian conditions and sidewalk clearing activism in the Canadian city of St. John's where most sidewalks are left uncleared over its long winters. The study employs ethnographic methods, with a focus on participants' autoethnographic accounts of navigating the city in winter and advocating for changes in snow clearing – accounts that also form the core of a documentary film directed by the authors. The findings demonstrate how uncleared sidewalks lead to an urban winter environment that is disabling, furthering existing mobility injustices produced by intersections between various forms of inequality and limited public or active transportation options. City residents enunciate their outrage about this situation through physical mobility practices such as walking in the middle of vehicle lanes and self-conscious critiques of everyday idioms about the 'hardiness' of residents. This study highlights the importance of taking seasonality into account when examining conditions for pedestrian mobilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present the idea that the documentary film My Octopus Teacher (Ehrlich & Reed) is an evocative allegory for some key threads in the ongoing learning at the heart of psychotherapy. On the one hand, the film is a narrative about a relationship formed between the narrator and documentary‐maker Craig and an octopus that he encounters in daily dives in an underwater kelp forest. On the other hand, it is a story–dream of a man and an octopus who swim together in the proto‐mental seas of the unconscious, a space where fluidity and symmetry rule, and where the boundaries between I and thou dissolve. Alongside the theme of mutual dream work, the documentary presents an evocative allegory of what it takes to practice as a therapist: the maps of our own disintegration that inform our work, and the key dispositions of learning to watch and observe and to fine tune our faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If Gaelic has been symbolically appropriated to represent Scotland, then it follows that we need to look more closely at the part played by documentary film both of and from the Scottish Hebrides, in furthering the dissemination of what is an idealised and contested identity. As documentary is a negotiated contract between the producer and those they 'represent', the discussion needs to consider whether the representation of a Hebridean identity, and by extension a mythical Scottish identity, is constructed by the filmmaker, and if so, how filmic constraints and practices inform this representation. Within this framework is an acknowledgement of the extent to which Hebridean identity has been mediated by books, photographs and films for the past 300 years. This article will deliver the findings of a research project undertaken in the in the Outer Hebrides (also known as the Western Isles and Lewis & Harris). The research investigates the extent to which interviewees themselves collude with documentary makers in presenting a view of the Gael that reflects the Gaelic-speaker's own self-assigned role as guardian of the land and traditions. As this research marries practice with research, it will present it in a semi-autobiographical style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documentaries have frequently captured journeys to places audiences might not have seen before. The first documentary film Nanook of the North (1922), often referred to as a travel film, took viewers to the Canadian Artic for the first time. In 1929, The Man with a Movie Camera revealed the rhythm of the Soviet cities through the Kino-Eye. Now the documentary film genre, the City Film is taking viewers on a virtual tour into new digital synthetic domains as they contain artificially generated images produced by GenAI. In response to this emergence of the ‘AI eye’, a computational vision of the world, the following attributes of AI as an asset, tool and collaborator shape the discussion of novel creative documentary processes that are emerging when Gen AI is integrated into computational non-fiction. This article explores a computational vision of the world in relation to the City Film documentary genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the functions of the documentary cinema is to highlight specific social situations, by denouncing human rights violations. Consequently, it allows us to understand reality to modify public opinion and action in favor of well-being. In consideration, the research analyzes the social usefulness of ethics during the making of visual work. Study My Life Inside (2007) by Lucía Gajá to explore the ethical dilemmas of cinema and its relationship with the subjects portrayed. It emphasizes the importance of the plausible possible, mimesis and veracity to demonstrate what happened while respecting the ethical limits of the possible. It avoids the economic exploitation of the human sensitive dimension by advocating moderation during representation. Highlights the importance of informed consent between the director and the subjects. It underlines the importance of evidencing the impairment of dignity to form strategies that allow collective well-being. The disquisitions are formed from the deductive rationalist approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]