A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film - by Alexandra Juhasz & Alisa LeBow (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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

From the Back Cover

A COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTARY FILM

"This collection is the very best of companions to have on a journey through contemporary documentary film. Edited by two of the smartest thinkers/practitioners around, and with an equally lively cast of authors, this book is required reading."
Faye Ginsburg, New York University

"A fresh, innovative, and stimulating take by a variety of authors on both the state of documentary and the state of the world it pictures."
Michael Chanan, University of Roehampton

A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film presents a dynamic collection of original essays that examine the current state of the documentary in the United States and around the world. Featuring contributions from top documentary scholars and makers, readings are organized around thematic strands central to concerns of today's world - the planet, migration, work, sex, virus, religion, war, torture, and surveillance. A variety of issues relating to these topics are addressed as they are treated in a range of documentaries, including questions of form and formal traditions; the politics of documentaries and their real-world implications; the voice of the documentary filmmaker; regional, national, and international representations; and approaches to race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender in a fascinating array of films. A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film offers thought-provoking insights into a film format that is rapidly achieving its powerful potential to inform, inspire, enlighten, and even change the world.

About the Author

Alexandra Juhasz is Chair of the Film Department at Brooklyn College, CUNY. She is the author of AIDS TV (1995), Women of Vision (2001), F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth's Undoing, co-edited with Jesse Lerner (2005), Learning from YouTube (2011), and co-editor of Sisters in the Life (with Yvonne Welbon, 2018), and AIDS and the Distribution of Crises (with Nishant Shahani and Jih-Fei Cheng). Dr Juhasz is the producer of the fake documentary feature films The Watermelon Woman (1997) and The Owls (2010), as well as many "real" documentaries. Her current work is on radical digital media literacy given that fact of fake news: fakenews-poetry.com.

Alisa Lebow is Professor of Screen Media at the University of Sussex. Her publications include the interactive project Filming Revolution (2018), The Cinema of Me (2012), and First Person Jewish (2008) along with numerous articles on aspects of documentary ranging from art and documentary to questions of "the political" in documentary. Lebow has also made several documentaries including Outlaw (1994), Treyf (1998), and For the Record: The World Tribunal on Iraq (2006).