New Essay: “The Rhetoric of the New Political Documentary”

This latest book review from Betsy, is of The Rhetoric of the New Political Documentary, a collection of eight essays analyzing the rhetoric of “political documentaries.”

In other news, Betsy is teaching an online course at National University titled "Producing Documentaries."

UPDATE (9/9):Here is the link for the Master of Fine Arts in Digital Cinema (MFA-DC) degree program which provides information on online courses at National University.

Posted 26 Aug 08

New Essay: “Now We Are Seven: Parsing ‘The Up Series’”

Another book review from Betsy, this time of Seven Up, Stella Bruzzi’s book-length analysis of Michael Apted’s landmark British television documentary, The Up Series.

Posted 11 Jul 08

Photos from the John Huston Lecture on Documentary Film

Check out the photos from the John Huston Lecture on Documentary Film at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that took place on April 15. At the event John Huston’s World War II documentary classics “San Pietro” (aka The Battle of San Pietro) and “Let There Be Light” (1946) were screened, and Betsy moderated a panel discussion aftewards.

Posted 25 Jun 08

Site updates

A few updates to the site:

• Betsy recently reviewed Patrick Russell’s 100 British Documentaries: “Even before I read the entire book, 100 British Documentaries proved to be an indispensable resource. …Tens of thousands more readers are sure to find it equally invaluable.”
• Starting later this month, Betsy will be teaching a class titled “Documetary Film Today” at the Palm Desert Campus of California State University, San Bernadino. More details in Events
• New links to the list of Documentary Festivals: International Documentary Competition, Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival, cph:dox and docBsAs.

New Book Review

We’ve added a new book review of A New History of Documentary Film by L. Clare Bratten in the Journal of Film and Video, edited by Stephen Tropiano.

Read a copy of the review in Reviews.

A link to the Jihlava International Documentary Festival, Jihlava, Czech Repulic, added to the Links page.
Posted 15 Apr 08