The Many Faces of Globalism and the Challenges of Documentary Filmmaking

MEDIA MATTERS The Many Faces ofGlobalism and the Challenges ofDocumentary Filmmaking C. A. GRIFFITH AND H. L. T. QUAN EPPAWALA: AN URGENT APPEAL FROM SRI LANKA by Priyantha Colombage (32 minutes, 2000, Color) THE CHILDREN WE SACRIFICE by Grace Poore (61 minutes, 2000, Color) OVERSTAY by Ann Kaneko (74 minutes, 1998, Color) (Representing Realities? At the turn of the 21st century, thanks to advances in technology, the increased quantity, types, and perspectives of documentary films hold tremendous potential for audiences and filmmakers alike. Documentary filmmaking today confronts a number ofcomplex challenges and opportunities that will shape not only what we see, but how and where we see these films. Greater access to media and expanded opportunities for distribution are assumed to occur through lower cost and more rapidly produced alternatives such as digital video, non-linear editing, and internet streaming ofall genres and lengths offilm and video. Yet, as much as these terabyte and gigahertz (huge and fast) advances promise to gready reduce the prohibitively expensive costs and time consuming process once associated with motion picture film production and postproduction , documentary filmmakers are still struggling. Structurally, the problems of form, production, and distribution have not changed [Meridians:/eminism, race, transnationalism 2001, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 42-57]©2001 by Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved. 42 significandy. In fact, one could argue that the situation has worsened as the pool for public and private financing for documentaries has become more competitive even as it has shrunk. Nonetheless, audiences often expect more from women and filmmakers ofColor. Indeed, we are frequendy expected to make films that fill in the gaps left by the mainstream and increasingly monopolistic media and distribution companies. The impetus is to explore issues with more detail and attention to the layers of meaning, and to take up topics and perspectives which are often marginalized or silenced. However urgendy needed, it is unrealistic to expect that any filmmaker will miraculously fill in all the gaps left by prior mainstream films that came before. Filmmakers are not super-human glue capable ofidentifying and filling all the fissures left in the wake ofover a century offilmmaking . Nevertheless, the desire on thepartoffilmmakers and audiences to see and create films which speak to, by, and for communities ofColor and historically marginalized groups anticipates such super-human, amoebae-like gap closing powers. These expectations fall on filmmakers struggling to work within the context of chronically insufficient resources coupled with an unwritten and often self-imposed prerequisite slickness that might help their films to be distributed. Audiences too are struggling to find alternative voices and perspectives which reflect the realities oftheirlives, while challenging the narrowgaze oftheir own and others' lives that are seen in feature films, episodic television , music videos, and commercials. However, there is a distinct gap. On one side ofthe divide, we have our expectations and appetites for documentaries which are more "realistic," three-dimensional, challenging and approachable. On the other side, we have the usual offerings within the standard venues available to a mass audience through organizations such as pes, film festivals, community centers, classrooms, and other small venues. In a world where the small handful ofdocumentary filmmakers who are fortunate enough to complete their projects must then market and sell these works with the same tenacity and vigor oftheir colleagues in commercial film, we find ourselves in a disturbing catch-22. Documentaryfilm needs to be mostunfettered by market demands which can compromise content and form. In essence, the pressure for documentary films to be marketable and universal in their very specificity in order to be funded, produced, and distributed, is stealthily destabilizing the medium at its core. THE MANY FACES OF GLOBALISM AND DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING 43 One of the most problematic of these compromises is adhering to a forced slickness, masked as a "professional" look. This look is then (self)imposed upon filmmakers without sufficient resources as well as on filmmakers who have no desire to emulate it. If the footage is not "broadcast quality"—ifthe sound and image are too "unstable" for professional broadcast, or the content is "too different" or "too unapproachable " (read: does it look like everything else on pbs even though it is supposed to...