“Is it even possible for something designed as entertainment to be a public service?” Predators cinematographer-editor-director David Osit asks this question of ethnographer Mark de Rond about NBC TV show To Catch a Predator and its successors, but it also applies to this project’s of-the-moment anxieties about nonfiction practice. Documentaries seem to have entered a phase of self-reflexive fretting about their own impact; I think one reason No Other Land has become so popular is because it explicitly states this, having its subjects worry about their Facebook click rates and wonder out loud whether the film they’re making can possibly […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 26, 2025Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? The night before the Sundance deadline, I found myself laying on the floor of my edit suite at 3am with a freshly self-inflicted broken hand and a waterfall of tears running down my face. To say that I had lost my mind a bit would’ve been an understatement. The post-production process had been an […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2025