The Reel Deal: Documentary Class Attends Film Festival

“Everyone came into the class thinking about TV documentaries that you would see on PBS or the Discovery Channel. What we've come to find is that the category ‘documentary’ is much broader. There's so much more that's considered part of that idea or mode of working in film,” said Ayres. 

The film festival validated their initial discoveries, helped them gain a better understanding of what they’ve learned in class, and exposed them to several types of films including silent, animated, and foreign. 

“It was like a sampling of every kind of flavor. We got to see more artsy films, some that were more of what you think of as a documentary,” Dunn said. “There were so many different kinds of media being shown. I learned some really interesting things from the documentaries themselves.”

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is a program of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. According to its website, the festival is “an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of nonfiction cinema.” The four-day festival featured nearly 80 films as well as discussions and panels to “foster community and conversation among filmmakers, film professionals, and the public.”

“Documentaries bring people together because everyone is learning something new. It was nice seeing all the different varieties of documentaries, whether they were silent or in a different language or a different setting,” noted Harrison.

The documentaries covered a large range of topics, and some of the class’ favorites included stories about Swedish children, Ukrainian refugees staying on a converted military base, imaginary chicken worlds, and much more.

“I’ve recommended this class to underclassmen as a way to kind of expand their worldview a bit and take some things with them to college,” Dunn said. “In this class you can apply the other things you’ve learned in English courses and put them into a different form than you’re used to.”