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Excerpt: Making documentary films forces students to engage in the complexities of the genre.

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Thesis submitted 1967; degree awarded 1968. Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University, 1968. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This thesis is a study of the development of documentary films in Jamaica from 1938 - 1966, what has been accomplished, and how it has been achieved, as well as a critical analysis of the present situation and recommendations for improvements. The study should be of value to the country as it is the first that has been attempted in this particular field, and one of the few to be attempted by a Jamaican in the many areas of the country's development. [excerpt from Introduction]

This research is an attempt to define ”presentness” in documentary film. Presentness is a term I have borrowed from performance studies where it describes a feeling when actors are unusually present. I use it here to describe moments of intense focus, uncertainty, a connection or an unexpectedness between the people I film, and myself. Considering myself  a ”social actor”, I apply Goffman’s work on performance in everyday life to help me understand the performances taking place in front of and behind the camera. As method, I have created ”retroscripts”, transcripts of recordings I made for a film where I talk to my friends about growing up in a multicultural society. I analyse these encounters, trying to understand when and why moments can lead to a feeling of presentness.  Diary entries contribute a biographical element, charting my own interest and awareness of my performance as a filmmaker. This practise-based research develops previous discussions on performance by using the transcripts to place theory in the real world of filmmaking. It connects conversations on identity by Hall, which are closely related to the subject matter of the recordings themselves, with performance theory as developed by Fischer-Lichte. It approaches theory as a way of interpreting what takes place and as a practical tool for becoming a better filmmaker. The research engages with the work of other filmmakers with an interest in performance (Asquith, McAllister), through their films and theoretical contributions. Documentary filmmakers are split in their attitudes towards performance. Some try to get beneath the ’mask’, others examine the mask itself to see what it tells us about the image we project of ourselves. Inspired by Goffman, I focus on the cracks in between, when the mask comes on or off, believing these moments to contain a spark of now and a potential for presentness. I draw parallels with different acting techniques and propose that filmmakers can benefit from learning from the preparation of actors.  While acknowledging that presentness in film is a subjective experience and its perception by an audience is dependent on context, my research suggests a better understanding of the performance of a filmmaker can help her create the conditions for presentness to occur in the creation of filmic material.

This study aimed to contest political and cultural stereotypes depicted through the verbal and audio-visual languages used to represent the Rwandan genocide in the films, A Good Man In Hell(2002), Hotel Rwanda(2004), Sometimes In April(2005) and Keepers of Memory(2004). A Good Man in Hell criticised the racism that influenced the international community not to help Rwandans stop the genocide. In Hotel Rwanda, mostly the Tutsis died during the genocide of 1994. Sometimes in April revealed that the Hutu middle class engineered the genocide. Keepers of Memory depicted the gendered nature of the language of genocide and showed that women were silenced at various levels. The films partially succeeded in depicting the Rwandan genocide because the films did not sufficiently foreground the socio-economic factors that created the conditions for genocide to happen. The study suggested that future research on film representations could compare and contrast cases of genocide in Africa. / English Studies / Thesis ( MA (African Languages))

Synopsis As soon as the fingers of the French accordionist, and of the two Taiwanese harpist and pipa player start to run on their instruments the different melodies influenced by each of their culture, the audience is immersed in the multicultural atmosphere set by the collaboration between the two puppet companies. In front of the public stands a box, reminding the traditional tool of puppeteers, but this very box is a massive one of 4 meters on 4 meters. On left and right side of it, three Taiwanese and their puppets and three French and their puppets. As they are walking around the box so as to express the distance they cross, they finally meet. Then on start a Shakespearian love story, and a friendship grows between the 6 puppeteers. The box, fixed on a rolling structure, rotates on itself and gives each time the audience the occasion to see a new face of it, a new part of the plot, new interactions between actors, as well as new elements of each countries’ puppet tradition. This documentary follows the thread of “The Box” from besides the coulisse’s curtains of this one year long collaboration between the French Puppet Company “Les Zonzons” with the Taiwanese “Taiyuan” Company. Following the chronology of their collaboration, traveling back and forth from Taipei to Lyon for Guignol’s 200 years birthday and back to Taipei for the Art Festival, the film will not only shows parts of the live representations and their rehearsals, but also it tries to give audience the occasion to grasp more understandings on those two old puppet’s traditions. Beyond this introduction, the film also questions the current state of both Puppet Theater and the problem of transmission of these traditions. Meantime, through relating this artistic co-realization where puppets play somehow a mediating role, a kind of ‘bridge’ of reflection, creation, communication and respect between those two companies with differences of life and lifestyle, way of thinking, environment, language, code, etc, this film evokes the issue of intercultural dialogue. As a mirror of the play it presents, and trying to get out from the usual clichés of portraits made on both culture, this non-fictional film depicts an encounter between people from these two cultures and tries to give some insights on the exchanges and the process of mutual understanding that underlie beneath. Keywords: intercultural communication; intercultural awareness; intercultural performance; exchanges of knowledge; transmission of traditions; documentary film; non-fiction film. － 片名：（法文）En chair et en bois （英文）In flesh and wood － 型態、規格 ： 紀錄片； DV － 長度：77分鐘

Mineola is a poetic, observational, immersive documentary centered in the town of Mineola, Texas. The film provides an intimate, first person perspective of different locations in the town as well as underlying subversive beliefs and traditions. The film’s authoritative perspective guides the viewer not only in a direction of observation but personal connection to nostalgia of small communities.

The aim of this thesis Documentary Film from the Copyright Point of View is to explore and evaluate copyright specifics of documentary cinema. Chapter One describes documentary film as a culture phenomenon with peculiar relationship to reality. It shows possible definitions and classifications and outlines some of the ethical questions connected with the documentary cinema. Then follows a brief excursion into the history of copyright protection of audiovisual works (both in the Czech Republic and in the international context), with emphasis on speciality of documentary films protection. Chapter Three examines terms audiovisual work and authorship of an audiovisual work as defined in effective Czech Act No. 121/2000 Coll. on Copyright and Rights Related to Copyright and tries to mark boundaries of these terms and its possible interpretation especially in relation to the documentary and other non-fiction films. Next chapter deals with the legal nature of protagonists of documentary or social actors which differs from legal nature of the actors in fiction films, because social actors does not perform artistic performances as defined in Czech Copyright Act. Subsequent Chapter Five analyzes protection of personal rights of social actors in documentary films which is governed by general protection of...