American independent filmmakers who moan over long-term storage bills, failed hard drives and misplaced optical tracks will receive the corrective they need to their First World Film Preservation problems by viewing Pietra Brettkelly’s new documentary, A Flickering Truth. Receiving its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, the picture follows a group of film archivists who have secretly fought to preserve Afghanistan’s storied film culture from the violence of the Taliban era. Below, Brettkelly answers questions about filming in a war-torn country, Afghan cinema and how her own archival practices have changed as a result of making this film. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 18, 2015A large part of my film, The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, was shot in the extraordinary region of southern Sudan. Its first language is Dinka, its second language Arabic. Casual greetings are unfortunately my limits in both these languages, and this was both the challenge and the beauty of trying to film an observational documentary. My cameraman and I were often running on instinct, interpreting the body language of people we were filming. We’ve both filmed overseas and have gained some familiarity with European and Pacific Island languages. But Dinka in particular has no similarity to anything I’d […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 14, 2008