Intended as an easy-to-use self-training tool for early-career documentary filmmakers, UNESCO has published a free e-book on writing documentary scripts. The e-book, written by Trisha Das, analyses both pre-shoot and post-shoot scripts, providing useful advice for those trying to learn the art and craft of documentary filmmaking. The e-book was published as part of a training module, through which the Paris-based UN agency seeks to support filmmakers in developing countries.
Download the e-book here.
The controversy over “The Bridge” continues even one year after the film first screened at festivals around the world. Filmed over the course of a year at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, “The Bridge” explores the issue of suicide and mental health.
After beginning its journey on the festival circuit in 2006, the film infuriated both bridge officials and family members, who complained they were not informed of the film’s true nature by the filmmaker. The documentary also triggered a loud debate within the film community itself about the ethics of documentary filmmaking.
Director Eric Steel set up cameras on both sides of the bridge and recorded approx. two dozen suicides and suicide attempts that took place that year. He then interviewed friends and families of those who had died, piecing together portraits of grief. The director did not inform family members that he would use graphic images of the suicides to “illustrate” the interviews - which led to the families feeling exploited.
Read more about this film on San Francisco Chronicle. A DVD release by Koch-Lorber Films is set for June 12th, 2007.
The actress Daryl Hannah is currently working on a documentary about the problem of sex slavery around the world. Wearing disguise, she travels to brothels in different countries in an attempt to record the disturbing truth about the lives of trafficked victims and sex slaves. The actress herself nearly fell victim to a sex slave operation in Las Vegas when she was 17 but managed to escape.
Search Amazon.co.uk for documentaries.
One of the notable documentary films currently travelling through the festival circuit is “The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez”, a German-made film honouring the life of the first US soldier to be killed in the Iraq war.
Gutierrez was one of the 300,000 soldiers sent by the US Army to war in Iraq. His death within the first few hours of the war prompted his picture to travel all over the world. He was a so-called green-card soldier – one of approximately 32,000 soldiers in the US Army, who have traded military service for US citizenship.
Directed by Heidi Specogna, the film tells the moving and nearly unbelievable story of a one-time street child from Guatemala, who headed north along the Pan-American highway full of hopes and desires for a better future – and ultimately to die an American hero far from home. Searching for the images and stories that made up this life, the director set out to retrace Gutierrez’s path from Guatemala through Mexico and into the USA.
Continue reading ‘The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez’
