Universitat Internacional de Catalunya

Documentary

Documentary
3
16233
4
First semester
OB
Main language of instruction: Catalan

Other languages of instruction: English, Spanish,

Introduction

The Documentary course focuses on the study of the historical, theoretical, and aesthetic foundations of nonfiction cinema as a mode of audiovisual representation of reality. Drawing on key theoretical debates that shape documentary film practice (Nichols, Bruzzi, Renov, among others), the course invites students to reflect on concepts such as “reality” and its representation, as well as the crisis of “truth” as a narrative—one that has shifted from an initially presumed objective pursuit toward the predominance of subjectivity as a defining characteristic of contemporary documentary practice. To understand how documentary filmmaking has developed throughout film history as a fundamental tool for approaching and interpreting contemporary social realities—from a creative and artistic perspective—the course involves the analysis of a selection of films. These screenings will support a diachronic review of the main figures, movements, and trends in documentary filmmaking—primarily European, North American, and Latin American—from its origins to its contemporary hybrid and self-reflexive practices (Post-Truth documentary).

Pre-course requirements

Successful completion of the course Filming.

Objectives

  • To introduce students to the richness of the documentary genre by exploring its main expressions from its origins to the present day. In parallel, students will be required to produce a collaborative documentary project, whose development must demonstrate consistent progress and supervision throughout the semester.

  • Through group research presentations, students will take an active role in leading their own learning process, constructing a condensed overview that addresses the key moments, movements, and authors that have shaped the history of documentary cinema from its beginnings to the present. To achieve this, they will compare and analyze films in relation to their historical contexts and connect their legacies to contemporary manifestations of the genre.

  • To explore contemporary documentary trends, their main tensions, hybrid forms, fractures, and the blurred boundaries between fiction and nonfiction. Students will be introduced to the principal subjective, self-representational, and self-reflexive practices (essay film, autobiographical documentary, filmed diaries, letters, portraits, and self-portraits); practices of recycling and re-signification (archival footage, found footage); as well as performative and poetic approaches.

  • To introduce students to the creative and expressive possibilities of audiovisual approaches to reality by exploring the narrative, aesthetic, and formal strategies deployed by major documentary movements and their most paradigmatic figures, through the viewing and critical analysis of a selection of key films in the genre’s development.

Syllabus

Unit 1: Theoretical Framework and Context (Lectures)

  • Introduction: The limits of representing reality.

  • Modes of Documentary Representation:
    • Expository Mode
    • Observational Mode
    • Interactive or Participatory Mode
    • Reflexive and Self-Reflexive Mode
    • Poetic Mode
    • Performative Mode

Unit 2: Cinema Is Born as Documentary (Student Presentations)
  • Pioneers: Origins and the staging of documentary: The Lumière Brothers.
  • The Exploration of Otherness: Robert Flaherty.
  • European Documentary Avant-Gardes: Dziga Vertov, John Grierson, Joris Ivens, Jean Vigo, Walter Ruttmann, Luis Buñuel, José Val del Omar, etc.
  • Propaganda Documentary: Leni Riefenstahl.
Unit 3: Modern Documentary (Post–World War II) (Student Presentations)
  • Cinéma Vérité: Jean Rouch, Pier Paolo Pasolini, etc.
  • Direct Cinema: Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker, Albert and David Maysles.
  • The New Latin American Documentary: Militant cinemas of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Octavio Getino, Santiago Álvarez, Fernando “Pino” Solanas, Patricio Guzmán, etc.
  • Documentary and Postmemory: Second generations in the post-dictatorships of Latin America: Albertina Carri, Macarena Aguiló, etc.
Unit 4: Post-Truth Documentary and Contemporary Practices (Lectures)
  • From the Subjective Turn to the Affective and Performative Turns: Agnès Varda, David Perlov, Chantal Akerman, Johan van der Keuken, Barbara Lehman, Alanna Ch. Robertson, Naomi Kawase, etc.
  • Autobiographical and Self-Representational Documentary.
  • Life and Travel Diaries.
  • Letters and Correspondences.
  • Portraits and Self-Portraits.
  • Essay Film: Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Trinh T. Minh-ha, etc.
  • Other Hybrids: Fakes, Mockumentary. Recycling, Archival Practices, and Re-Signification: Found Footage.

Bibliography and resources

ADAMS SITNEY, P. (1978). “Autobiography in Avant-Garde Film”. En: The Avant-Garde Film: A Reader of Theory and Criticism. Nueva York: University Press.

ARDÉVOL, Elisenda y PÉREZ TOLÓN, Luis (1995). Imagen y cultura. Perspectivas del cine etnográfico. Granada: Diputación Provincial de Granada.

BARON, Jaimie (2013). The Archive effect. Found Footage and the Audiovisual Experience of History. London: Routledge.

BRUZZI, Stella (2006). New Documentary. London: Routledge.

CAMPO, Javier et.al. (Ed.) (2020). El cine documental: una encrucijada estética y política. Buenos Aires: Prometeo libros.

LAGOS, Paola. «Poéticas de la Autorrepresemtación» en LAGOS, P., David Perlov. La imagen bisagra como pensamiento cinematográfico intersticial. Valencia: Shangrila, 2024. Pp. 32-108.

LEDO, Margarita (2004). Del Cine-Ojo a Dogma 95. Barcelona: Paidós.

MARTÍN GUTIÉRREZ, Gregorio (2008). Cineastas Frente al Espejo. Madrid: T&B Ediciones.

NICHOLS, Bill (2001). Introduction to documentary.  Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

NICHOLS, Bill (1997). La representación de la realidad. Cuestiones y conceptos sobre el documental. Barcelona: Paidós.

NICHOLS, Bill (1994). Blurred Boundaries. Question of meaning in contemporary culture.  Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,

PRIVIDERA, Nicolás (2022). Cine documental: la pasión de lo real. Buenos Aires: la marca editorial.

RABINOWITZ, Paula (1994). They must be represented: The Politics of Documentary. New York: Verso Books.

RENOV, Michael (2004). The subject of Documentary. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

RENOV, Michael (1993). Theorizing documentary. New York: Routdlege.

ROUCH, Jean (1979) «La camera et les hommes» en FRANCE, C. de, Pour une anthropologie visuelle. 

SÁNCHEZ NAVARRO, Jordi (2001). Imágenes para la sospecha. Falsos documentales y otras piruetas de la no ficción. Barcelona: Glenat.

SCHEFER, Raquel (2008). El autorretrato en el cine documental: figuras, máquinas, imágenes. Buenos Aires: Catálogos. 

TORREIRO, Casimiro y CERDÁN, Josetxo (2005). Documental y Vanguardia. Madrid: Cátedra.

TORREIRO, Casimiro, ALVARADO, Alejandro (2023). El documental en España. Historia, ética e identidad. Madrid: Cátedra. 

WEES, Willliam (1993). Recycled Images. The arts and politics of found footage films. New York: Anthology films Archives.

WEINRICHTER, Antonio (Ed). (2007). La forma que piensa. Tentativas en torno al cine-ensayo. Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra.

WEINRICHTER, Antonio (2004). Desvíos de lo real. El cine de no ficción. Madrid: T&B Editores.

ZUNZUNEGUI, Santos, ZUMALDE, Imanol (2019). Ver para creer. Avatares de la verdad cinematográfica. Madrid: Cátedra.

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