A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film presents a collection of original essays that explore major issues surrounding the state of current documentary films and their capacity to inspire and effect change.
- Presents a comprehensive collection of essays relating to all aspects of contemporary documentary films
- Includes nearly 30 original essays by top documentary film scholars and makers, with each thematic grouping of essays sub-edited by major figures in the field
- Explores a variety of themes central to contemporary documentary filmmakers and the study of documentary film - the planet, migration, work, sex, virus, religion, war, torture, and surveillance
- Considers a wide diversity of documentary films that fall outside typical canons, including international and avant-garde documentaries presented in a variety of media
Table of Contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction: A World Encountered 1
Alexandra Juhasz and Alisa Lebow
Part I Planet 19
Juan Francisco Salazar
Introduction 21
Juan Francisco Salazar
1 Crude Aesthetics: The Politics of Oil Documentaries 28
Imre Szeman
2 Anticipatory Modes of Futuring Planetary Change in Documentary Film 43
Juan Francisco Salazar
3 Projecting Sea Level Rise: Documentary Film and Other Geolocative Technologies 61
Janet Walker
Part II Migration 87
Anikó Imre
Introduction 89
Anikó Imre
4 Videogeographies 92
Ursula Biemann
5 Rates of Exchange: Human Trafficking and the Global Marketplace 108
Leshu Torchin
6 Documenting What? Auto-Theory and Migratory Aesthetics 124
Mieke Bal
Part III Work 145
Silke Panse
Introduction 147
Silke Panse
7 The Work of the Documentary Protagonist: The Material Labor of Aesthetics 155
Silke Panse
8 Old School Capitalism in Post-Socialism: The Struggles of elimir ilnik’s Workers 176
Ewa Mazierska
9 Capturing the Labors of Sex Work: The Pedagogical Role of Documentary Film 191
Anna E. Ward
Part IV Sex 209
Laura Hyun Yi Kang
Introduction 211
Laura Hyun Yi Kang
10 Documentary Practice and Transnational Feminist Theory: The Visibility of FGC 217
Patricia White
11 Transforming Terror: Documentary Poetics in Lourdes Portillo’s Señorita Extraviada (2001) 233
Rosa-Linda Fregoso
12 Reading Realness: Paris Is Burning, Wildness, and Queer and Transgender Documentary Practice 252
Eve Oishi
Part V Virus 271
Bishnupriya Ghosh
Introduction 273
Bishnupriya Ghosh
13 Animating Informatics: Scientific Discovery Through Documentary Film 280
Kirsten Ostherr
14 HIV on Documentary Television in Post-Apartheid South Africa 298
Rebecca Hodes
15 Digital AIDS Documentary: Webs, Rooms, Viruses, and Quilts 314
Alexandra Juhasz
Part VI Religion 335
Alexandra Juhasz and Alisa Lebow
Introduction 337
Alexandra Juhasz and Alisa Lebow
16 Rising in the East, Sett(l)ing in the West: The Emergence of Buddhism as Contemporary Documentary Subject 341
Angelica Fenner
17 The New Religious Wave in Israeli Documentary Cinema: Negotiating Jewish Fundamentalism During the Second Intifada 366
Raya Morag
18 Tran Van Thuy’s Story of Kindness: Spirituality and Political Discourse 384
Dean Wilson
Part VII War 401
Jeffrey Skoller
Introduction 403
Jeffrey Skoller
19 Second Thoughts on “The Production of Outrage: The Iraq War and the Radical Documentary Tradition” 410
Jane M. Gaines
20 One, Two, Three Montages … Harun Farocki’s War Documentaries 431
Nora M. Alter
21 The Unwar Film 454
Alisa Lebow
Part VIII Torture 475
Alisa Lebow
Introduction 477
Alisa Lebow
22 (In)visible Evidence: The Representability of Torture 482
Susana de Sousa Dias
23 Interviewing the Devil: Interrogating Masters of the Cambodian Genocide 506
Deirdre Boyle
24 The Female Perpetrator: La Flaca Alejandra and Operation Atropos 524
Macarena Gómez-Barris
25 Toward the Dark Side: Seeing Detainee Bodies in Documentary Film 536
Anjali Nath
Part IX Surveillance 557
Elizabeth Cowie
Introduction 559
Elizabeth Cowie
26 Architectures of Control and Points of Resistance: Surveillance Culture and Digital Documentaries 566
Sharon Lin Tay
27 The World Viewed: Documentary Observing and the Culture of Surveillance 580
Elizabeth Cowie
28 Surveillance in the Service of Narrative 611
Brian Winston
29 Face Blind: Documentary Media and Subversion of Surveillance 629
Patrik Sjöberg
Index 647