Like fiction film, documentary film has a history of over one hundred years. It is popular among the film-makers worldwide and the way of story-telling has been evolving over time. As the film-making equipment is becoming more and more convenient, this is the golden age of producing creative documentary film. Social media platforms such as YouTube, have allowed documentary films to improve the ways the films are distributed and able to educate and broaden the reach of people who receive the information. How can documentary film tell stories? How close is documentary film to our lives?
To enhance students’ ability to appreciate documentary film, Moon Chun Memorial College held a documentary film review night on 11 November 2019. Before the start of film screening, the college master, Prof. Thompson greeted and expressed warm welcome to the guest speaker, Mr. Penny Lam who is a professional filmmaker in Macau. He was invited to host the film review and post-film discussion. The chosen film, “Faces Places” (French: Visages Villages) is a 2017 French documentary film directed by Agnès Varda and JR. It is a film about making people feel recognized, about making the invisible visible. The film follows director Varda and photographer/muralist JR traveling around rural France, creating portraits of the people they come across. During the post-film discussion, some participants shared their views and feelings about this film. Effy Yang shared that after watching the film, those impressive scenes lingered in her mind and filled her heart. She felt so touched with the beauty of humanity shown in this film. Mr. Lam concluded that what makes documentary film different from fiction film is that it tells something about the reality of our world – show us the real world whereas fiction film presents a story that is not based on reality, or at least not in the form it is represented. |
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