Sun May 27 | 2:00 pm | PC

Free Admission

When making a documentary film, there are many approaches and styles in working with human subjects.

Some filmmakers work in collaboration with their subjects, being open to their input and ideas throughout the process.

Sometimes this means developing a long-term relationship that continues beyond the film.

Some filmmakers interview or follow one or more people only once or twice when shooting, to add to their story, to help prove their theories or add to their film thesis.

Some filmmakers follow a trail of information while investigating a complicated story, with (or without) an open mind, meeting various people along the way who then become film subjects.

Some filmmakers gather and manipulate historical images of people to aid them in presenting pre-written scripts.

What are some of the potential impacts, negative and positive, of being portrayed in a film?

Do many filmmakers maintain relationships with their subjects after the film is finished?

What are the options when a subject is unhappy with the finished film?

Who does a film belong to –  the filmmaker? The film subject?

This forum will explore the frequently complicated relationships and power imbalances between director and subject in documentary filmmaking. A variety of filmmakers with different approaches will discuss such issues as ethics, honesty, and openness in documentary filmmaking when dealing with film subjects.

Forum Moderator: Jessica Fraser
Part of the team that created Kissed, one of the most successful Canadian films of the '90s, Jessica Fraser has produced and executive produced features, documentaries and short that have gained international distribution and competed at the Cannes, Berlin and Toronto Film Festivals.

Interested in how filmmaking can be a tool for change, Jessica played a key role in establishing Projections, a mentorship program designed to create an educational partnership between street-involved youth and professionals from the film and television industry.

Jessica currently heads up production at Karyo-Edelman, one of Vancouver's leading communication companies.

Forum participants: Maya Gallus and Justine Pimlott (Girl Inside), Morvary Samaré & Astrid Schau-Larsen (Remains / Skyggenes Dal), and Sharon Bartlett & Maria LeRose (Beyond Memory).

Maya Gallus

Girl Inside
Maya Gallus directed, wrote and co-produced her first film, the award winning documentary Elizabeth Smart: On the Side of Angels in 1991. It won Best Production, Best Documentary and Best Editing at the 1991 Yorkton Golden Sheaf Awards, as well as Best Narration at the 1991 Atlantic Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Direction at the 1992 Gemini Awards. Her feature-length documentary Erotica: a Journey into Female Sexuality was nominated for a Genie Award and Best Arts documentary at the 1998 Hot Docs. With co-producer Justine Pimlott she has produced the award winning reality series Punch Like a Girl and feature documentary Fag Hags.

Justine Pimlott

Justine Pimlott's directorial debut Laugh In The Dark, won the Best Social Issue Documentary Award at the 2000 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and Best Canadian Film at the Inside Out Film & Video Festival in Toronto.  Since producing and directing Laugh In The Dark, Justine has gone on to direct several episodes of the reality series, Fire Station, for the Discovery Channel, and Chasing The Dream, a pre-Olympic one hour special for CBC Sports on international women's hockey. In 2003 Justine co-produced and co-directed the critically acclaimed 6 part reality series on women's boxing for the Life Network, entitled Punch Like A Girl, which received two Gemini nominations for Best Direction in a Documentary series. In 2005 Justine directed Fag Hags: Women Who Love Gay Men, winner of the Audience Award for Best Film at the Inside Out Film & Video Festival and the Audience Award for Best Canadian Film at the Reel Out Festival. Recently Justine produced Girl Inside, a feature length documentary directed by Maya Gallus. 

Morvary Samaré and Astrid Schau-Larsen

Remains/Skyggenes Dal
Morvary Samaré was born in Iran, 1981. She grew up in Sweden and has studied poltics and economics at the University of Lund. She also studied film in Denmark in 2004/05. Moment of Fury, her short film debut, has been screened at different festivals on human rights.

Astrid Schau-Larsen was born in Bergen, 1981. She studied religion, economics and Middle-East studies at the University of Bergen. She studied film in Denmark in 2004/05 and made Moment of Fury with Morvary

Sharon Bartlett and Maria LeRose

Beyond Memory
Award winning producers/directors Sharon Bartlett and Maria LeRose share a commitment to create programs that refl ect the realities of peoples’ lives. They have worked as a team for almost twenty years and have completed nine biographies for the CBC series Life & Times, a Knowledge Network documentary series on Child and Youth Mental Health, and numerous other documentaries that tell the stories of ordinary people who live through extraordinary life events.