ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the connections between feminist theorizing and documentary filmmaking. It critically interrogates questions around the politics of representing “others,” and of the inextricability of power and knowledge in documentary representation. In particular, we examine how documentary realism has been both critiqued and defended within feminist debates, and how issues of documentary filmmaking intersect with and inform the fields of feminist historiography and ethnography. Moreover, the chapter examines how women have used the autobiographical documentary form to articulate experiences that are otherwise invisible in the broader media landscape. We discuss notable feminist documentaries, including Year of the Woman (Susan Hochman, 1973, US), Finding Christa (Camille Billops and James Hatch, 1991, US), Images from the Corner (Jasmila Žbanić, 2000, Bosnia-Herzegovina), Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke, 1967, US), as well as Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Reassemblage (1983, US) and Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989, US).
Chapter 5 objectives:Understand the importance of documentary filmmaking traditions in the context of women’s role in film history
Examine the main strains of feminist documentary filmmaking, as well as the scholarly debates around them
Understand the ethical implications of documenting the lives of others
Explore the question of how feminist documentaries trouble the notions of reality and objectivity
Understand how documentary film figures into the frameworks of transnational cinema and transnational feminism
