One of the great exponents of the direct cinema style, Quebecois poet, essayist, and film-maker Pierre Perrault (1927-1999) began his documentary career in radio before joining the more traditional Ren’e Bonni’ere filming life in the lower St. Lawrence. In the 1960s he joined the National Film Board of Canada to shoot films in the new direct style, taking a small two-man crew into communities to reveal their beliefs and allegiances as they coped with social change. His legendary trilogy on the Ile-aux-Coudres opened with his most famous work, Pour la suite du monde (1963). Ostensibly a look at the local people’s effort to revive a traditional beluga hunt, it is actually the beginning of a lifelong inquiry into the relationship between community and national identity. This relationship emerges most clearly in the highly poetic Un pays sans bon sens! (1970), which brought Perrault into conflict with the NFB. The film was sidelined for many years. After a trip outside Quebec to Moncton to document francophone student unrest, Perrault made a second trilogy, this one in northwestern Quebec, showing the collapse of traditional farming communities relocated to the Abitibi during the Great Depression. Further explorations took Perrault to the northern interiors of Quebec, the hunting woods of Maniwaki, and to the tall ships retracing Jacques Cartier’s voyages of discovery. The triology culminated in the desolate arctic landscapes of the mysterious muskox, and two of his most haunting creations. The first major publication on Perrault in English, Pierre Perrault and the Poetic Documentary discusses not only the world that Perrault’s cinema revealed but a revolution in film-making from a great poet. Co-written and edited by David Clandfield, Principal of New College in the University of Toronto, Pierre Perrault and the Poetic Documentary also features contributions from scholar Jerry White, as well as translations of some of Perrault’s writings on film. Published by the Toronto International Film Festival. Distributed in Canada by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Distributed outside Canada by Indiana University Press.

The work, entitled "The Poetic Documentary: From Joris Ivens to Nonny de la Peña", documented the poetic documentary from the first public film projection made on December 28th, 1895, fighting the dominance of the consumption area fueled by the desire to mature, the maturity of the genre itself, as well as the future trends towards which this kind of documentary film directs itself, as well as the appearance of new technologies such as virtual reality or the concept of cloud filmmaking. The research focuses on the diegetic world of the documentary film, both from the historically point of view and from specialized criticisms, in order to highlight the current theoretical knowledge and a few research perspectives, for the future, in order to test the applicability of the aesthetic elements (as an universal aspect) in the construction of the poetic documentary.

Documenting the Documentary features essays by 27 film scholars from a wide range of critical and theoretical perspectives. Each essay focuses on one or two important documentaries, engaging in questions surrounding ethics, ideology, politics, power, race, gender, and representation-but always in terms of how they arise out of or are involved in the reading of specific documentaries as particular textual constructions. By closely reading documentaries as rich visual works, this anthology fills a void in the critical writing on documentaries, which tends to privilege production over aesthetic pleasure. As we increasingly perceive and comprehend the world through visual media, understanding the textual strategies by which individual documentaries are organized has become critically important. Documenting the Documentary offers clear, serious, and insightful analyses of documentary films, and is a welcome balance between theory and criticism, abstract conceptualization and concrete analysis.

This lively introduction to television documentaries spotlights their history, production and reception, principal forms and functions and their adaptation to today’s programming needs. What impact has television's growing commercialisation had on the type of documentary broadcast? What has led to the introduction of an increasing number of hybridised forms? These questions are addressed within an examination of the role of institutions, documentary’s 'special relationship' with the real, and an insight into how audiences interpret the documentaries they view. Confronting reality has been written with the requirements of media studies students in mind, yet it is a must for everyone concerned with recording reality in the fast-changing world of television today.

The work entitled The Poetic Documentary: From Joris Ivens to Nonny de la Peña documented the course of the poetic documentary from the first public film screening, made on 28 December 1895, going through the fight against the predominance of the consumer zone fueled by the desire for maturation, the actual maturation of the genre, and the future trends to which this kind of documentary film is moving with the emergence of new technologies, like virtual reality or the concept of cloud filmmaking. The research aims at the diegetic world of the poetic documentary film, both historically and critically, to shed light on current theoretical knowledge and some insights for fertile research, for the future, to test the applicability of aesthetic elements (as a universal aspect) in the construction of the poetic mode.

A sweeping survey of how global filmmakers have treated the subject of the Holocaust.

This new edition of Bill Nichols’s bestselling text provides an up-to-date introduction to the most important issues in documentary history and criticism. Designed for students in any field that makes use of visual evidence and persuasive strategies, Introduction to Documentary identifies the distinguishing qualities of documentary and teaches the viewer how to read documentary film. Each chapter takes up a discrete question, from "How did documentary filmmaking get started?" to "Why are ethical issues central to documentary filmmaking?" Carefully revised to take account of new work and trends, this volume includes information on more than 100 documentaries released since the first edition, an expanded treatment of the six documentary modes, new still images, and a greatly expanded list of distributors.