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Sadia Shepard’s Shortlist

Published on November 17, 2009

The Shortlist article series is your opportunity to learn about the films that inspire intellectual, artistic and activist leaders—leaders like Sadia Shepard. We asked Sadia to share her favorite films and her thoughts on the power of documentary to change the world.

So what films make Sadia Shepard’s Shortlist? Keep reading to find out.

Who is Sadia Shepard

Sadia Shepard

Sadia Shepard is a documentary film producer and writer based in New York City. Most recently, she produced The September Issue, which chronicles the creative process of Vogue’s editorial team and its legendary editor in chief, Anna Wintour. Shepard’s book The Girl from Foreign (Penguin, 2009) tells the story of her two-year journey to India to uncover her family history and explore what it means to grow up with a Muslim mother, Christian father and Jewish grandmother. Her film In Search of the Bene Israel traces the legacy of Jews in Mumbai. Shepard teaches writing at Columbia University and lectures widely about faith and identity. Visit her at sadiashepard.com.

Sadia Shepard on the Power of Film

Documentary films link us to people that we might never meet, take us to places we might never have a chance to visit, and remind us that we are all connected through the human impulse to tell stories as a way of making sense of our world. I am most interested in how reality and memory are reconstructed and reshaped through the language of film—how do we represent or interpret our lived experience, and what is the power or potential of non-fiction filmmaking to tie us to one another?

Sadia Shepard’s Picks

Unzipped: In this intimate portrait of fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, filmmaker Douglas Keeve uses multiple film textures (black and white, color, Super 8mm, Super 16mm, 16mm), a mixture of interviews, and candid observational scenes to illuminate the joy and pain of the creative process and the elusive magic of inspiration. One of my favorite examples of a film that explores how a person bounces back from professional disaster, this film’s structure asks us to consider what might happen next—and then brings us along for the ride.

Chronicle of a Summer: In the turbulent summer of 1960, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin sent two women into the streets of Paris to ask a seemingly simple question: “Are you happy?” Among the first filmmakers to work with hand held sync sound 16mm equipment, in Chronicle of the Summer Rouch and Morin break the fourth wall repeatedly to create a portrait of a society in flux.

My Architect: A Son’s Journey: A moving exploration of the life and work of Louis Kahn as told by his son Nathaniel Kahn. Not merely a new vantage on a remarkable architect, this film reflects on how the built environment has the power to affect us and our senses of ourselves. In particular, the sequences in Louis Kahn’s capital complex in Dhaka showcase how one man’s vision continues to give a sense of pride and national identity to the people of Bangladesh. This was the first time I came to know the work of cinematographer Bob Richman, who shot The September Issue with elegance and humor.

Seventeen: Long before we were inundated with television programs about the high school experience there was Seventeen, Jeff Krienes’ and Joel DeMott’s brilliant, seminal and little seen direct cinema film about a group of high school seniors in Muncie, Indiana. Shot in the classrooms, keg parties and bedrooms of a group of teenagers, Krienes and DeMott spent months living in Muncie and growing close to their subjects, relationships which paved the way for intimate storytelling and for a true collaboration between filmmakers and subjects. Banned from PBS broadcast in 1982, Seventeen creates an indelible portrait of the racial politics of the American Midwest in the 1980’s, and, most importantly, the exuberance and banality of being seventeen.

A Road to Mecca: Structured like a filmmaker’s travelogue, A Road to Mecca - The Journey of Muhammad Asad tells the story of Leopold Weiss, an Austrian Jew who transforms himself into one of the most influential contemporary scholars of Islam. As Georg Misch delves into Asad’s history as an Austrian, Jew, Muslim, translator, writer and seminal figure, he cleverly crafts sequences that feature real people in real situations who are encouraged to interact with Asad’s narrative in the course of their daily lives. One memorable example is a mural painter in Lahore, who paints Asad’s portrait while wondering aloud if Asad has done more for Islam than the painter’s fellow Pakistanis. By seeking contemporary applications of Asad’s influence, Misch helps to make his protagonists’ biography both accessible and relevant.

Intimate Stranger: At the time of his grandfather’s death, Alan Berliner’s grandfather was writing a voluminous autobiography. But few people, most of all his family members, understood why. Using the leitmotif of an old, mechanical typewriter to punctuate and animate his story, Berliner deftly weaves together family photos, interviews, and archival footage to create a fluid, choral portrait of his grandfather. I try to watch Alan Berliner’s work, and this film in particular, often enough to remind myself of how important sound design in documentary filmmaking is, and how sometimes non-traditional relationships between sound and picture can resonate even more so than traditional ones.

La Corona (The Crown): This riveting short documentary (nominated for the Oscar in 2008) follows the participants of a fiercely contested beauty pageant in a women’s prison in Columbia. The contestants may be serving time for crimes such as murder and armed robbery, but their choreographed dances and catwalks are of much greater concern within the prison. Expertly cast to show a range of personalities, each character illuminates different aspects of the pageant process and of how their lives have be decimated by civil war and economic hardship. Ultimately, La Corona is a fascinating look at a regional fixation with pageants and pageantry, and a meditation on the importance of hope to keep a prisoners’ spirit alive. Despite the limitations of shooting in the prison, which included daily body searches, pre-approved shot lists, and the strict rule that they film only between the hours of 9-11 a.m. and 2-4 p.m., Micheli and Vega have produced a gripping, highly visual, and sometimes humorous look at this hidden world.

Three Films by Abraham Ravett: Half Sister, In Memory, The March : Abraham Ravett has made a series of haunting experimental documentaries that reflect on the affect of the Holocaust on his parents and the ephemeral nature of memory. In The March, Ravett uses a series of film interviews with his mother, recorded over a thirteen-year period, to investigate her experience of the death march from Auschwitz. In each interview, Ravett asks a repeated question about his mother’s memory of the March, to which she provides different responses. The result is a meditation on time, grief, and the endurance of loss.

This article is available for noncommercial use under a Creative Commons license. It was originally published on MediaRights.org, a project of Arts Engine, Inc. This notice must accompany the article at all times.

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