SUBJECT Documentary

Screening to be followed by a conversation with co-director Jennifer Tiexiera and co-producers and participants Ahmed Hassan, Margie Ratliff and Mukunda Angulo.

From award-winning filmmakers Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall, SUBJECT considers the ethical complications inherent in documentary filmmaking and leads an in-depth investigation into the documentarian and subject relationship. In revisiting notable works, both critical and commercial successes – THE STAIRCASE, HOOP DREAMS, THE WOLFPACK, THE SQUARE and CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS – the film lends a much-longed-for voice to their central participants. These subjects bring forward important and largely unexamined questions surrounding compensation and collaboration, interrogate the filmmaker’s responsibility to present an objective truth and to uphold a sense of trust between both spectators and subjects. Also weighing in on best practices is a cadre of important names in documentary, such as Sonya Childress, Thom Powers, Davis Guggenheim and Kirsten Johnson. This series of case studies ultimately reveals a range of production and release circumstances as complex as the humans it foregrounds. –Malin Kan