Global Lens: Documenting the World
Michael Fox
Experience views from abroad, courtesy of filmmakers and television producers working in their own countries and speaking to their fellow citizens. Revealing, refreshing and occasionally jarring, this class features a variety of documentary approaches and techniques.
Each film, which has almost certainly never been seen by U.S. audiences, is followed by a discussion of its goals, strategies, choices and ethics. We will examine such aspects of nonfiction filmmaking as point of view, the illusion of objectivity, journalism v. activism, the use of music and metaphor, and the blurring of fact and fiction.
Aug. 21 The Joy of Sound Ana Endara Mislov (Panama, 2016) 61 min
Identifying birds by their song, listening to classical music or making a radio program are some of the ways in which sound—that mysterious, invisible and intangible phenomenon—gives pleasure. These audiophiles share their perspectives on society, raising questions like do you feel physically better when listening to loud music?
Aug. 28 The Return Zahavi Sanjavi (Sweden, 2016) 54 min
A Kurdish nurse named Shilan is a volunteer for a Swedish hospital in a refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan where more than 20,000 Yezidis live in tents in the mud.
Sept. 4 Labor Day NO CLASS
Sept. 11 Death in the Terminal Tali Shemesh & Asaf Sudry (Israel, 2016) 53 min, Hebrew and Tigrinya
A tense, minute-by-minute, Rashomon-style account of October 18, 2015 when A terrorist armed with a gun and a knife entered Beersheba’s bus terminal .
Sept. 18 Fairytale of Kathmandu Neasa Ní Chianáin (Ireland, 2007) 60 min
The filmmaker follows her hero, the renowned gay Irish poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh, to Nepal, where he spends four months every year.
Sept. 18 Fairytale of Kathmandu Neasa Ní Chianáin (Ireland, 2007) 60 min
The filmmaker follows her hero, the renowned gay Irish poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh, to Nepal, where he spends four months every year.
Oct. 2 Site of Sites Natalia Cabral & Oriol Estrada (Dominican Republic, 2016) 61 min? ?
Humans have significantly altered the natural world in a way that no other species has. In this award-winner at the 2016 IDFA Documentary Festival, we witness one of the more obvious modes of this change: the creation of an artificial beach on a Caribbean resort.
Michael Fox has been a film critic and journalist since 1987; his current outlets include KQED.org/arts, Fandor.com/blog, Oakland magazine and The (East Bay) Monthly. He curates and hosts the weekly Cinema Lit series at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco, and also teaches documentary courses at OLLI at UC Berkeley. He is a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.
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