A short note on the Cuba Research Forum conference which has just taken place at Nottingham, which suggests that international research on Cuba is in good health. Under the as-ever cheerful helm of Tony Kapcia, we heard from speakers of various … Continue reading
This is how I remember Richard Attenborough—setting up a shot for Oh! What a Lovely War, in a photo I took myself. He’s the one in the hat. The news of his death takes me back to where I … Continue reading
When Sight & Sound sent out their invitation to contribute to their best documentaries poll, I’m afraid I bottled out, and sent this response. Dear Nick, Thanks for inviting me to contribute to Sight & Sound’s best documentaries poll. I’m … Continue reading
This is drawn from from a longer project, ‘Interrupted Memory’, an inquiry into the character of political memory filmed in Chile and Argentina in 2013. [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/102417704[/vimeo]
A remarkable discussion has taken place on Meccsa, an academic mailing list for media, communications and cultural studies, sparked off by my previous blog, Behind the News from Gaza. With more than 150 messages in three days, very little of … Continue reading
When the issues become too sharp and the contradictions too blatant, the news media are severely challenged to contain them within normal bounds. They generally try to keep stories apart in order not to have them contaminate each other, but … Continue reading
For readers of my book on the history of recording, Repeated Takes, a musician blogger in North Carolina, John H. Davis, has recently posted a set of photos and video clips to go with the book. Kudos. Snippets of Repeated … Continue reading
This video presents an overview of the work of the Brazilian filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho (1933-2014), one of the most original documentarists of recent decades, whose films remain shamefully little known in the English-speaking world. [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/99022268#[/vimeo] Read an accompanying discussion of … Continue reading
The symposium on audiovisual creative practice held at Roehampton University on June 14th, ‘Image Movement Story’, threw up an issue that reflects the incoherence of the research policies that fund our activities. On the one hand, judging from the wide … Continue reading
Here’s a piece I’ve written on the Israeli documentarist for Sight & Sound: Variety calls him a “gadfly documaker” and Cineaste quotes his own self-evaluation: “If some [filmmakers] see themselves as a fly on the wall, I see myself as a fly … Continue reading