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Documentary Film Summer School (August 1-7 2004, Locarno, Switzerland

Documentary Film and Journalism: The Mirror of the Conflict

Cinema has challenged journalism in two ways. On the one hand it has often depicted events that involved journalists; from the "The Big Carnival" (Billy Wilder, 1951) to "All the President's Men" (Alan J. Pakula, 1976) there is an epic of journalism that is told by cinema. On the other, cinema has often assumed the role of journalistic instrument; from "Tierra Sin Pan" (Luis Bunuel, 1932) to "The Salt of the Earth" (Herbert Bibermann, 1954), there are a lot of films investigating difficult realities and bringing them to light.

In which way the documentary film has interpreted this journalistic vocation in cinema? How did it evolve, faced with the need to explore reality? How did it interpret the idea of information? The Summer School will try to answer this questions, crossing two parallel paths. Attention will be focused on the language of journalistic documentary, its historical evolution, its theoretical articulations, and how it raises images' credibility. At the same time - in order to understand how to inform with images - the different poetics and the different styles of the informational documentary will be explored, its productive constraints, and its political derivations.

Application Deadline: July 2, 2004