Worthwhile articles on documentaries

Werner Herzog filming 'Into the Abyss' which screens at TIFF this week.

I can already imagine what my webmestre Kim Gjerstad might say about this post: “Magnus, I told you, only original material!”

But in my defense, these articles are very interesting, for different reasons. It’s disappointing however that the one about the abundance of docs at the Toronto International Film Festival doesn’t mention any Canadian docs, such as Surviving Progress. Maybe one reason is that TIFF programs very few Canadian docs?

Anyway, enjoy the reading.

  • A Bounty of Documentaries at Toronto Festival – focusing on the documentary offerings at TIFF, but in particular Werner Herzog’s film Into the Abyss, about the execution of death-row inmate Michael Perry. While editing, “Herzog said he was too shaken by his encounters with Mr. Perry, his associates, his pursuers and the family of his victims to work on the film for more than a few hours each day.”
  • Another NY Times article reviews a book by filmmaker Errol Morris, “Believing is Seeing” about the limitations of photographs. “Each of its six chapters originally appeared, in different form, in the Opinionator blog of The New York Times, and each centers on a photo or photo set: two slightly different pictures taken by Roger Fenton during the Crimean War; the infamous Abu Ghraib images, over two chapters; Depression-era photographs by Walker Evans and Arthur Rothstein; pictures of children’s toys lying in the rubble after Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon in 2006; and an ambrotype of three young children that was found clutched in the hand of a dead Union soldier at Gettysburg in 1863.”

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with the blog.

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Magnus Isacsson

As an independent documentary filmmaker I have made some fifteen films dealing with social, political and environmental issues. Previously I was a television and radio producer. I was born in Sweden in 1948, immigrated to Canada in 1970. I live with Jocelyne and our daughter Béthièle in Montreal, and my older daughter Anna lives in Toronto.

One thought on “Worthwhile articles on documentaries”

  1. Aha! Well, not quite. Your own original articles are important for sure, but linking to good content out on the web is also appreciated by Google, and your readers.

    You can surely do this once a month.

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