NO Definition Control! – Horizons of definition in documentary film making
A panel discussion with Carsten Heinze (host), Ernst-Dieter Lantermann, Grit Lemke, Johanna Schaffer and Thomas Weber
What makes a documentary? Is it:
Age old archive footage, interpreting the life’s work of one particular person? A montage of statements by intellectuals on truth and obligations in democracy, filmed by static camera and a short film of goats in a field? Scholarly words on the power and powerlessness, curse and blessing of images in the age of total control over black-and-white images, as if from CCTV cameras? The staging of protagonists to illustrate the issues of globalisation, clash of cultures or identity? Yes, it can be.*
Documentaries (often) are a socio-political mass medium, documenting the world and its condition, and thus question it, encourage debate and – hopefully – change.
How this manifests itself is hard to say – in view of innovations and new media – nor can it be generalised. It is a matter of perspective. Debates on documentary film practices with respect to propaganda, ethics, morals or aesthetics are necessarily tangled with historical, political and social developments.
But how to distinguish the “important” from the “irrelevant”, or “uninteresting”? And how does presentation influence the interpretation? How is the perception influenced by personal perspectives? What possibility is there in reflecting on this perspectives?
The DokfestForum is a platform for individual and academic exchange in documentary film making, showing the variety of possible interpretations on documentary practices. This to question the potential of artistic documentaries as one of many forms of non-fiction formats with respect to political and social processes.
*The concepts described in this text relate to the following films in this Dokfest:
RICKY ON LEACOCK, Jane Weiner, Donnerstag 15.11., 15:00, Filmladen
ANGRIFF AUF DIE DEMOKRATIE, Romuald Karmakar, Mittwoch 14.11., 17:00, Gloria Kino
LOW DEFINITION CONTROL - MALFUNCTIONS #0, Michael Palm, Freitag 16.11., 15:00, Filmladen
AND WHO TAUGHT YOU TO DRIVE, Andrea Thiele, Mittwoch 14.11., 22:15, Gloria Kino
