Beyond Story
With Alisa Lebow. An online, community based manifesto.
Not everything should be molded into a story, not everyone fits its constricting contours nor finds their most meaningful incantation in its familiar folds. There are many ways to shape a documentary. And yet, despite this self-evident claim, “storytelling” currently dominates the field.
We are not against story per se. We are against the privileging of story as the most viable or supported organizing principle for documentary, especially at the very moment that documentary is poised to liberate itself from its narrative moorings. It is crucial to think beyond story; to learn from and/or imagine other organizing principles that may have a greater force. We urge filmmakers, funders, programmers, viewers, and scholars to look beyond story and to other forms of documentary; to ask why storytelling has become today’s pre-eminent mode for documentary and what gets lost when storied structures prevail.
World Records, Volume 2, Fall 2018.
Go to Beyond Story
Topics: Curatorial, Editor, Organizer | Digital Production | Documentary | Highlight | Media Studies | Pedagogy | Works from 2018 |