Embedded Files
Plastic China: Recycling's Downside, RealTime, 18 July 2017
Wang Jiuliang's new documentary Plastic China explores the social and environmental impact of China's acceptance of much of the the world's waste.
Namatjira Project: Righting a Wrong, RealTime, 13 September 2017
A review of Namatjira Project, a new film exploring the life of Australian Indigenous artist Albert Namatjira.
"Virtual Embodiment, Real Empathy," RealTime 137, Feb-March 2017
Coverage of the VR+ Day at the 2017 Australian Documentary Conference in Melbourne, featuring VR pioneers such as Navid Khonsari, Austrlaian artist Lynette Wallworth, and Oscar Raby and Katy Morrison of the Melbourne-based VR production company VRTOV.
"Documentary in a Virtual, Post-truth World," RealTime 137, Feb-March 2017
Dan Edwards talks to the director of the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC), Andrew Wiseman, on the eve of the 2017 event, about the challenges facing contemporary documentary makers.
"AIDC 2017: Transcending the News Cycle", RealTime 137, Feb-march 2017
A look at The Guardian's documentary initiative, that has seen the news outlet commissioning increasingly ambitious documentaries streamed on theGuardian.com. Guardian Documentaries Head Charlie Phillips will be in Melbourne in March 2017 as part of the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC).
“ACMI Mark II: Museum of the future,” RealTime 136 (Dec-Jan 2013)
An interview with the innovative Katrina Sedgwick, currently director of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne, formerly artistic director of the Adelaide Film Festival and Head of Arts at the ABC.
“Documenting emotion,” RealTime 133 (June–July 2016)
What would a documentary of emotion look like? How can a documentary film make us feel the complexity of a situation without simply reverting to the manipulations of melodrama? Can the form be about feeling without becoming something else? A trio of titles at this year’s Human Rights Arts and Film Festival (HRAFF) provided some clues – Prison Songs (Kelrick Martin), Chasing Asylum (Eva Orner) and Hooligan Sparrow (Wang Nanfu).
“Men’s Business in another world,” RealTime 132 (April–May 2016)
A review expressing mixed feelings about Stephen Page’s experimental dance film Spear.
“Spinning Webs of Remembrance,” Fireflies 3 (March 2016, print only).
An essay on Jia Zhangke's documentary about Shanghai, I Wish I Knew. The print only publication can be ordered online, or from bookshops. Click here for a list of outlets or to order online.
“Oppression & the two sides of the digital coin,” RealTime 131 (Feb-March 2016)
A review of the acclaimed Tehran Taxi, the new feature from Iranian director Jafar Panahi.
Limited Critique, Internal Contradictions, RealTime 130, Dec-Jan 2015
A review of the environmental documentary The Changes Everything by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, that questions the films lack of reflexiveness when it comes to questions of responsibility for climate change.
300 million clicks: Under the Dome and the Chinese Documentary Context, Senses of Cinema 76 (September 2015)
A peer-reviewed article that considers the documentary context from which the online film Under the Dome (Qiongding zhixia, 2015) emerged. This film on China's chronic air pollution, by investigative journalist Chai Jing, went viral when it was released online in early 2015, attracting over 300 million clicks before it was systematically removed from sites inside China's Great Firewall. This article argues that, in addition to foreign influences such as An Inconvenient Truth, Chai's film draws on a long history of expository documentary work in China, as well as a more recent lineage of activist documentaries built around the personalised, embodied voice of the filmmaker.
Killer Contrite in a Heartbeat, RealTime, 128, August-September 2015
An article considering the implications of The Look of Silence, the follow-up to The Act of Killing (2012), by Joshua Oppenheimer. Like Oppenheimer's earlier film, The Look of Silence examines the mass killing of "communists" (a category that included everyone from Communist Party members to trade unionists to ethnic Chinese) in mid-60s Indonesia. This time, Oppenheimer focuses on the brother of one of the victims, and his present-day interactions with his sibling's killers.
Documenting Problems or Documentary as Problem, Realtime 127, June-July 2015
A review of the documentary We Come As Friends by Hubert Sauper about the world's ongoing neo-colonial relationship with Africa. The article asks, however, whether documentaries like Sauper's aren't part of the problem when it comes to the exploitation and objectification of Africa and its people.
Framing the Heavy Weight of History: Yellow Earth, Senses of Cinema 74, May 2015
A short critical appreciation of Chen Kaige's seminal film Yellow Earth, a work often credited with launching China's Fifth Generation. Part of Senses of Cinema's "Cinematheque Annotations on Film" in conjunction with the Melbourne Cinematheque.
Above: Katrina Sedgewick, current director of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne.
Dan interviewed Katrina for RealTime in December 2016.
Photo Michael Clements
Above: Chinese activist Ye Haiyan, the subject of the acclaimed documentary Hooligan Sparrow, directed by Wang Nanfu.
Dan wrote about Hooligan Sparrow when it screened at the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival in Melbourne.
Above: The three street buskers on the streets of Jakarta in Daniel Ziv's debut documentary Jalanan. Dan wrote about Jalanan among a selection of music-focused documentaries at the 2014 Melbourne International Film Festival.
Above: Joshua Oppenheimer's extraordinary documentary The Act of Killing.
Dan reviewed the film for RealTime, and interviewed Oppenheimer for Senses of Cinema.
Above: Iranian director Jafar Panahi in his new work The Is Not a Film,
shot while the director was under house arrest in Tehran.
Dan reviewed Panahi's film for RealTime magazine.
On Class and Development, RealTime 126, April-May 2015
A review of JP Sniadecki’s intimate and experimental The Iron Ministry, a documentary about life on China’s vast, crowded rail network.
Looking At/ Looking in Antonioni's Chung kuo, Cina: A Critical Reflection Across Three Viewings, Senses of Cinema 74, March 2015
This article traces my response to Antonioni's 1972 documentary Chung Kuo, Cina across three viewings: before I ever visited China, while living in Beijing, and at the time of writing. I consider not only my own varying relationship to the film, but also some of the different responses the film has provoked since its release, both in China and the West.
An Eye on China for Three Decades, RealTime 124, Dec-Jan 2014
A critical overview of a series of documentaries on Hong Kong and China made between the 1980s and the present, by Australian documentarian Nick Torrens. Torrens' most recent work is China's 3 Dreams, which debuted at the 2014 Sydney Film Festival.
Life, Death and Music – Making Connections, RealTime 123, Oct-Nov 2014
Four documentaries at the 2014 Melbourne International Film Festival that examine the power of popular music composed on the streets: Jalanan (Indonesia), Pulp: A Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets (UK/New Zealand), Jai Bhim Comrade (India), and Don't Think I've Forgotten (US/Cambodia).
Epic History, Intimately Told, RealTime 122, Aug-Sept 2014
An interview with Australian documentary maker Sophia Turkiewicz, about her new film Once My Mother, an epic story of her mother's internment in a Soviet labour camp and post-war journey to Australia.
Redfern: The View from the Inside, RealTime 121, June-July 2014
A review of the latest documentary from the acclaimed Indigenous Australian filmmaker Darlene Johnson, The Redfern Story.
Above: Wang Bing's The Dtich, a harrowing portrait of life in one of Mao's labour camps, reviewed as part of Dan's coverage of the Hong Kong International Film Festival for RealTime magazine.
Documentary Democratisation: Well Beyond Water; I Am Eleven, RealTime 120, April-May 2014
Dan's second article for RealTime looking at current debates around digital distribution in Australian documentary, through the case studies of Andy Ross' web-doco Well Beyond Water, and the self-distributed feature documentary I Am Eleven by Genevieve Bailey. Dan's first article on digital distribution can be accessed here.
Cautionary Tales: Under the Eyes of ASIO, RealTime 119, February-March 2014
A look at some of the responses to Haydn Keenan’s four-part documentary series Persons of Interest, that screened recently on Australia's SBS channel. The series details how ASIO conducted mass surveillance of the Australian population throughout the post-war years.
Making and Distributing from the Grassroots Up, RealTime 118, December-January 2013
A discussion of some of the issues raised by Lauren Carroll Harris’ new Platform Paper, Not at a Cinema Near You (Currency House) in relation to the distribution of documentaries in Australia.
Above: Zhao Tao in Jia Zhangke's I Wish I Knew, which Dan
wrote about for RealTime arts magazine.
Facing the Evasion of the Bitterest Truth, RealTime, 117, October-Nov 2013
A review of the new documentary The Act of Killing, about the massacre of communists in 1965 that ushered in Indoesia's "New Order." The film is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, who was interviwed for the article.
Unexpectedly and Violently Absurd, RealTime, 117, Oct-Nov 2013
A review of the new feature film A Touch of Sin, by Chinese director Jia Zhangke, which played recently at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The article also contains excerpts from an interview with the director.
Cinematic Scar Tissue: An Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer on The Act of Killing, Senses of Cinema, 68, September 2013
An in-depth interview with Joshua Oppenheimer, director of the extraordinary documentary The Act of Killing, about the massacre of communists, other leftists, and ethnic Chinese that ushered in Indonesia's "New Order" in 1965.
Anatomy of a Successful Arts Doco Series, RealTime, 115, June-July 2013
Sword swallowers, bio chemists and video artists - a look at the innovative Anatomy arts documentary series screened on the ABC.
Reframing the World, RealTime e-edition, 8 May 2013
An interview with Sari Braithwaite, programmer of Melbourne's Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.
Hope and Survival in the Back of a Van, RealTime, 113, February-March 2013
An interview with Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah) about his new installation, Mother Courage, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
A Culture Cleft in Two - the documentaries of Scott Millwood, Senses of Cinema, 65, Dec 2012
A critical essay on the work of Australian documentary maker Scott Millwood, who directed the award-winning Wildness (2003) and What Ever Happened to Brenda Hean?. The essay is part of Senses of Cinema's special series on "Tasmanian and the Cinema."
Art, Activism and Ai Weiwei, RealTime, 112, Dec-Jan 2012
A review of the acclaimed new Alison Klayman documentary about Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, entitled Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.
Chinese filmmakers risk it all to defy government censorship, Crikey, 6 September 2012
Chinese documentary maker Hu Jie was recently prevented from leaving China to travel to a Nepalese festival. Meanwhile feature film director Ying Liang has the opposite problem - he's been threatened with arrest if he sets foot back in mainland China. A look at some of the pressures facing China's independent film sector at present.
DIY filmmakers offer rare, raw face of China, The Age, 3 August 2012
An overview of the Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos program curated by Dan Edwards for the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival. Also features a short video interview with Edwards.
“If They Won’t Make It, I Can”: An Interview with Documentarian, Hu Jie, ArtSpace China, 1 August 2012
An interview with Hu Jie, one of China's most controversial independent documentary makers. Hu directed Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul and Though I Am Gone, two films looking at suppressed incidents from the Maoist era.
"Every Official Knows What the Problems Are:" An Interview with Chinese Documentarian Zhao Liang, Senses of Cinema, 15 July 2012
An interview with one of China's most acclaimed documentary makers, Zhao Liang, whose films Petition and Crime and Punishment will screen at the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival as part of the "Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos" program curated by Dan Edwards.
Street Level Visions: China's Digital Documentary Movement, Senses of Cinema, 7 July 2012
An overview of the China's burgeoning independent documentary scene and the selection of films comprising "Street Level Visions," a program of Chinese documentaries curated by Dan Edwards for this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.
Murder and Mutable Truths, RealTime, June-July 2012
A review of the recently completed "Paradise Lost" documentary trilogy by U.S. filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, about the infamous West Memphis Three Murder case.
Tuning in to a Red Light Revolution, The Age, 26 April 2012
Profile of the Australian, Beijing-based filmmaker Sam Voutas, director of China's first "sex shop comedy" Red Light Revolution.
Moral Questions, Everyday Choices, RealTime e-edition, March 20 2012
A review of A Separation, the Oscar-winning drama from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi.
Iran: Cinematic Defiance From a Prison Home, RealTime 107, Feb-march 2012
A review of Jafar Panahi's This Is Not a Film, shot while the director was under house arrest in Tehran and recently released in Australia.
Visions of a Life Constrained, RealTime e-edition, November 22, 2011
A review of Granaz Moussavi's Iranian-Australian film My Tehran for Sale, and the sentence handed to actress Marzieh Vafamehr for her role in the film.
Ghostly Tales from Our Northern Neighbours, RealTime 105, Oct-Nov 2011
A review of The Fourth Portrait by Taiwanese director Chung Mong-hong, and Eternity by Thai director Sivaroj Kongsakul, which both screened at the 2011 Melbourne International Film Festival.
A Nation Slipping Under the Sea, New Matilda, 28 Sep 2011
A look at Tom Zubrycki's new documentary The Hungry Tide, and its protrait of a nation suffering the effects of a warming planet.
A Nation Slips Under the Waves, RealTime 105, Oct-Nov 2011
A look at The Hungry Tide, the new documentary by Tom Zubrycki, about the low-lying Pacific Island nation of Kiribati, which is slowly succumbing to rising tides.
Beyond the TV Frame – Antenna International Documentary Festival, RealTime, 104, Aug-Sept 2011
Preview of the inaugural Antenna documentary festival, coming to Sydney's Chauvel Sydney in October 2011.
You Can't Build on an Emptiness, RealTime 103, June-July 2011
In China's southern Jiangxi province, filmmaker Jian Yi and his wife Eva have set up IFChina Original Studio, a brave experiment in Chinese civil society that train young people in film, photography, theatre, and oral history. Dan visited the studio earlier this year and spoke to Jian Yi about his pioneering work.
China's Divided Screen Culture, RealTime 103, June-July 2011
A look at some of the Chinese films screened at the 2011 Hong Kong International Film Festival: The Ditch by Wang Bing, Bachelor Mountain by Yu Guangyi, and the omnibus film Yulu produced by Jia Zhangke.
CinemaTalk: A Conversation with Ou Ning, dGenerate Films blog, March 1 2011
Interview with the Chinese artist, writer, curator and documentary filmmaker Ou Ning, director of the acclaimed Sun Yuan Li and Meishi St.
Who's Using Who? Zhou Hao's Hall of Mirrors, dGenerate Films blog, Feb 22 2011
An essay on Using and The Transition Period, and pair of documentaries by one of China's most sharp-eyed documentary makers, Zhou Hao.
Fear, Loathing and HIV, The Beijinger, January 2011
An article on Zhao Liang's documentary Together, which looks at the plight of HIV suffers in China - reproduced here on the Screening China blog.
The Vicious Circle of Justice: Zhao Liang’s Crime and Punishment, deGenerate Films blog, November 4, 2010
A review of Crime and Punishment, a film by the Chinese documentary filmmaker Zhao Liang, looking at life inside a Chinese police station in the country's far northeast.
Shanghai: Fractured Memories, Contested Histories, RealTime, 99, Oct-Nov 2010
A review of the new documentary I Wish I Knew by Chinese director Jia Zhangke, which delves into Shanghai's fractures historical consciousness.
China’s Blockbuster Propaganda, The Diplomat, September 9, 2010
A discussion of China's recent state-sponsored blockbusters Aftershock and The Founding of a Republic, and the protectionist measures in place to make sure these films achieve maximum exposure in China.
From the Dark Side of Economic Success, RealTime 97, June-July 2010
Reviews of two Chinese documentaries screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival: Petition, Zhao Liang's disturbing look at the brutality, violence and intimidation surrounding those seeking justice in contemporary China; and Once Upon a Time Proletarian, Gu Xiaolu's series of snapshots of life in China's interior.
Alternative Realities - China's Digital Documentary Generation, RealTime 96, April-May 2010
While China's political system remains deeply authoritarian, the country's overwhelming size and explosive growth have opened cavernous gaps in the government's control of culture, through which a new generation of DV-wielding documentary filmmakers have climbed with relish. Dan Edwards looks at some of China's key independent documentary makers.
A Film Master on the Big Screen: Xie Jin Retrospective at MOMA BC, theBeijinger.com, 4 March, 2010
Beijing’s one and only arthouse cinema, MOMA Broadway Cinematheque, is proving a godsend for film fans who love the big-screen experience, but want something more challenging than multiplex spectacles. Recently MOMA BC kick off their first “Great Masters Retrospective” with a season of eight works by Xie Jin, the exemplary representative of China’s “third generation” of filmmakers. Although not well known in the English-speaking film world, here in China Xie Jin is revered as one of the nation’s great directors.
Family Life One Moment at a Time: Liu Jiayin on Oxhide, theBeijinger.com, 24 February, 2010
Oxhide by Liu Jiayin is one of the most acclaimed and innovative slices of recent independent Chinese cinema. Beijing audiences recently had the chance to see Liu’s film, and its sequel Oxhide II, on the big screen at the famous 798 art zone. Dan Edwards spoke to Liu on the eve of the screenings.
Where the Truth Lies, RealTIme 94, Dec-Jan 2009
Jia Zhangke's most recent feature, the documentary-drama hybrid 24 City, considers China’s dramatic economic transformation through the story of factory 420—once a state-owned industrial showpiece now being knocked down to make way for luxury apartments. His 19-minute short drama Cry Me a River is a more conventional portrayal of the disillusionment and ennui of middle age, but with a particularly Chinese historical inflection.
Merely Floating in the World, RealTime 94, Dec-Jan 2009
A look at Zhao Dayong's extraordinary documentary Ghost Town, about a forsaken town on the Chinese-Burmese border. Includes interview comments with the director.
Coming Soon to a Broadsheet Near You, New Matilda, 6 Jan 2009
In propagating misconceptions about the Australian film industry, mainstream media pundits are sabotaging the national conversation about screen culture.
Buried Truths, Hidden History, Realtime 88, Dec-Jan 2009
A review of Australian documentary Whatever Happened to Brenda Hean? by Scott Millwood. Hean disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1972 while campaigning to save Lake Pedder in Tasmania. Dan wrote about Millwood's earlier films here.
Tasmania's Culture of Abuse, New Matilda, 15 December 2009
Another look at Whatever Happened to Brenda Hean? by Scott Millwood, including a discussion of the book that accompanies the documentary, and the critical reception to the film in Australia.
You Just Want Us to Look Bad, New Matilda, 21 November 2009
Dan Edwards discusses some unexpected reactions to depictions of China on screen he's encountered while living in Beijing.
Family Ties, review of Cherries, Time Out Beijing, July 2008
A harrowing family tale from China's countryside by director Zhang Jiabei.
Review of The Park, Time Out Beijing, May 2008
A moving meditation on the complexities of familial relations and the corrosive effect of time on people's dreams and expectations.
Art, Commerce, Action!, RealTime 84, April-May 2008
A look at the ambitious 10-film Yunnan New Film Project produced by Lola Zhang, and the first two titles in the series: The Case and The Park.
From Chinatown to China, RealTime 82, Dec 07-Jan 2008
The story of the first Australian-China animated co-production, Sweet and Sour. Includes comments from the film's producer Barry Plews.
The Secret War: Remembered and Repressed, RealTime 80, Aug-Sept 2007
It's hard to imagine two films more diametrically opposed in their portrayal of America's secret war in Laos than Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog) and documentary Bomb Harvest (Kim Mordaunt).
World Without Bearings, RealTime 79, June-July 2007
An examination of the style and thematic concerns of Jia Zhangke, one of China's most important contemporary filmmakers.
Cinemas of Possibility, RealTime 78, April-May 2007
An overview of the Asian films screening at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2007, including documentary Please Vote for Me by Chen Weijun, I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone by Tsai Ming-liang, Syndromes and a Century by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, documentary Feet Unbound by Khee-jin Ng, and How is Your Fish Today? by Guo Xiaolu.
Of Profits and Prophets, RealTime 78, April-May 2007
A report on the Australian Documentary Conference (AIDC) in Adelaide, February 2007. UK PACT Council Chair Alex Graham managed to ruffle feathers with his keynote address, while other sessions at the conference revealed some of the internecine conflicts that prevent coherent lobbying by the Australian film sector.
Michael Riley: Photographer & Filmmaker - part 2: the films - Buried Histories, RealTime 76, Feb-March 2007
In 2007 the National Gallery of Australia staged a retrospective of the work of Indigenous Australian filmmaker and photographer Michael Riley. This is the second section of a two-part article on the exhibition, focusing on Riley's films. Part one, focusing on Riley's photography, can be found here.
Iraq's Shattered Dreams, RealTime 74, Aug-Sept 2006
Ahlaam by Mohamed Al-Daradji depicts a contemporary Iraq of almost unimaginable misery, while also making a more general point about the nightmarish consequences of arbitrary, absolute power.
Meticulous Compositions in Time, RealTime 73, June-July 2006
A preview of the Jean-Pierre Melville retrospective at the 2006 Sydney Film Festival. Melville was a master of the crime film and its film noir variant, best known for his features Le Samouraï (1967) and Le Cercle Rouge (1970).
A Telling Silence, RealTime 73, June-July 2006
A look at the disappointing Australian tele-movie The Silence directed by Cate Shortland. Although it was hoped this production would resusitate the ABC's reputation as a producer of quality television drama, it was fatally undermined by a ridiculous plot and poorly developed thematics.
Africa's Problem: Europe, RealTime 72, April-May 2006
Darwin’s Nightmare by documentary maker Hubert Sauper paints a disturbing picture of life around Tanzania's Lake Victoria, where 500 tonnes of Nile perch are caught every day, filleted in factories around the lake, and flown in vast Russian cargo planes to supply European dinner tables.
Dylan's 60s Revisited, RealTime 71, Feb-March 2006
Dylan's seminal 60s work reconsidered through the books of Greil Marcus and the Martin Scorsese documentary, No Direction Home.
Australian Western: Fear on the Frontier, RealTime 70, Dec-Jan 2005
Dan dissects The Proposition, directed by John Hillcoat and written by Nick Cave, and finds a brutal, sweat-soaked, insightful Australian genre film with one foot in the American revistionist Westerns of the 1970s, and the other in the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.
Activists' Argentina, RealTime 69, Oct-Nov 2005
The Take sees filmmakers Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein journey to Argentina, to document the worker-run co-operatives that got Argentina's factories going following the country's stunning economic collapse in 2001.
Somersault: Beauty and Turmoil, RealTime 62, Aug-Sept 2004
Australian director Cate Shortland developed her distinctive style across four short films made over the course of a decade, before her debut feature Somersault, a study of alienation set in the Australian winter resort town of Jindabyne.
Animating War, RealTime 62, Aug-Sept 2004
A review of Birthday Boy, a short animation by Australian filmmaker Sejong Park, about a young boy caught up in the destruction of the Korean War.
The Bad Dream Machine, RealTime 61, June-July 2004
Edifice—VW in Dresden, by Thomas Tielsch, follows the building of a transparent VW factory in the depressed German city of Dresden, and in the process illuminates how class and philosophical outlook crucially inform the way we read the spaces around us.
Scott Millwood: Documentary Poet, RealTime 60, April-May 2004
An overview of the career of Australian documentary filmmaker Scott Millwood, including his first documentary Proximity (1999) and his AFI Award-winning second film Wildness (2003), as well as details of some unrealised projects and a video installation in Melbourne. Includes comments from Millwood.
An Ark Floating Over the Surface of History, RealTime 55, June-July 2003
Russian Ark by Aleksandr Sokurov is a deeply conservative and ahistorical piece of reactionary nostalgia, argues Dan Edwards.
Profile of Sergio Leone, Senses of Cinema, September 2002
An appraisal of the legendary "Spaghetti Westerns" director Sergio Leone from the Great Directors Database compiled by Senses of Cinema.
Max Price and Brenda Hean before taking off on their ill-flighted flight
in the documentary Whatever Happened to Brenda Hean?
by Scott Millwood, which Dan wrote about for New Matilda and RealTime.
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