Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Last week at the Karlovy Vary IFF, the Center for Documentary Film presented the outcomes of its research analysing students’ theses focusing on documentary filmmaking. The CDF team has been working on several research projects and their first output is a detailed analysis mapping the interest of the upcoming generation of film critics, historians and filmmakers in documentary filmmaking, its various contemporary and traditional forms, methods of production, financing and distribution, function in the society and the cultural sphere, or in publications by prominent directors. We have therefore collected all bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral theses focusing on documentary filmmaking produced at Czech universities and art schools in the past three years.

What do the students focus on?

A basic summary of partial outcomes of our research was presented at the 50^th Karlovy Vary IFF as part of the Docu Talents from the East (a showcase of upcoming creative documentaries from Eastern Europe). 26 out of a total of 108 academic works were based on original research. 73 theses were concerned with Czech documentary filmmaking. Students were primarily interested in Czech documentary films, most often analysing Czech Dream, All for the Good of the World and Nošovice, Katka, René and Marcela. Film references were mostly related to films made by Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda, Helena Třeštíková and Miroslav Janek. It is also noteworthy to look into the sources used by the students in their academic papers: among the most referenced publications were Introduction to Documentary by Bill Nichols and Le Documentaire, un autre Cinéma by Guy Gauthier (both co-published by Jihlava IDFF). The research focused also on the methodology of students’ theses, i.e. the way in which students approached their selected topics (prevailing reflections on practical outcomes, biographical studies and content analyses, however, economic-industrial analyses have also become a trend in the recent years). Aside from describing the documentary filmmaking practice and analysing particular film works, students mainly focused on the methods of representation of the selected topics or groups in documentary film, but also production, financing and distribution mechanisms or film festivals and film education. A detailed report explicating the individual parts of the research will be published in September 2015 on CDF website.

Download the research