Exploring Genre – The Last 20 Years: Documentary’s Golden Age
While non-fiction film has been around since the beginning of cinema itself, the past 20 years have yielded a seismic shift in the production, exhibition, utilization, and aesthetic experimentation of documentary cinema, and culminated in a period largely understood as a “golden age” of documentary film. Further, documentary film has become a ubiquitous tool to raise awareness around social issues, expanding the work previously designated only to journalism, advocacy, and social action. This two-part series will survey highlights from the last 20 years of documentary film and discuss the implications of its becoming linked with a social issues agenda. Part 2 includes a screening of Errol Morris’ classic 1988 film THE THIN BLUE LINE.
Series Events
Full Series Pass
Buy a pass to both sessions and receive a discount.
Tickets: $40 / $32 Avalon members
Buy Series Pass
Lecture and Analysis
Mon, Nov 9, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Session 1, a 2 1/2 hour lecture, will introduce major approaches, techniques, and milestones in documentary filmmaking from the last 20 years and look at its aesthetic, social, and political implications. We will pay particular attention to how, precisely, documentary has become inextricably linked with a social issues agenda, and question both the opportunities and the limitations in a genre, or mode of production, being shifted from a medium of artistic expression to one expressing social concerns and prompting action.
Tickets: $30 / $25 Avalon members
THE THIN BLUE LINE screening and discussion
Mon, Nov 16, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm
THE THIN BLUE LINE is the fascinating, controversial true story of the arrest and conviction of Randall Adams for the murder of a Dallas policeman in 1976. Billed as “the first movie mystery to actually solve a murder,” the film is credited with overturning the conviction of Randall Dale Adams for the murder of Dallas police officer Robert Wood, a crime for which Adams was sentenced to death. With its use of expressionistic reenactments, interview material and music by Philip Glass, it pioneered a new kind of non-fiction filmmaking. Its style has been copied in countless reality-based television programs and feature films. NR, 103 min, in English.
Tickets: $15 / $12 Avalon members
Series Curator
Sky Sitney is the former Festival Director of AFI Docs (previously known as Silverdocs), and is recognized as one of the key contributors in helping it become one of the leading documentary festivals in the United States. She recently joined the Film and Media Studies Department at Georgetown University as a visiting Assistant Professor, and serves as a consultant for a variety of film and media organizations. Sky is also the co-creator of the inaugural “Double Exposure: Investigative Film Festival and Symposium” which explores the burgeoning intersection between film and investigative journalism. She received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and M.A. from New York University, where she is currently a doctoral candidate Cinema Studies.