Soka Professors Help Organize International Documentary Film Festival

Supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation’s Just Films Office, Professors Kristi M. Wilson and Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli helped organize the 24th Visible Evidence documentary film festival in August, 2017, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The festival included nearly 2,000 participants who attended film screenings, panels, discussions and workshops about the documentary film genre.

Many screenings ran out of seats, Wilson said, with attendees opting to sit on the floor rather than miss the event. Acclaimed New Zealander Annie Goldson premiered her latest documentary “Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web” to a packed house. Screenings by Luis Ospina, Susana Barriga, and Thomas Elsaesser were also sold out. Two additional screenings of Elsaesser’s film, “The Sun Island,” were added to accommodate the interest.

One of the most well received presentations was the “Quipu Project” presentation, Wilson said. Directors Maria Court and Rosemarie Lerner were able to present their activist film and web archive project that records and preserves the testimonies of victims (mostly indigenous people) of forced sterilization in Peru in the 1990s.

Wilson and Crowder-Taraborrelli participated in a workshop on documentary and pedagogy in which they discussed their recent publication “ITVS (Independent Film and Video Service) Community-Cinema: State-sponsored Documentary Film Festivals, Community Engagement and Pedagogy.”

Crowder-Taraborelli also chaired a roundtable of four of the most acclaimed Argentine documentary film makers: Nicolás Prividera, Virna Molina, Ernesto Ardito, and Alejandro Fernández Mouján.

Wilson and Dr. Crowder-Taraborrelli are especially grateful to the SUA Office of Sponsored Research for ongoing support with all stages of the grant process.