Festival Talk: Documentary Filmmakers on Style and Substance
Description
In 1991, American film critic and theoretician Bill Nichols proposed that there were six different modes of documentary—poetic, expository, reflexive, observational, performative, and participatory—each containing its own specific characteristics. Particular elements of these modes that documentary films can incorporate include vérité, archival, reenactments, direct interviews, and using animation or black-and-white footage. Join independent documentary producer Kathleen Lingo as she talks with Festival filmmakers Cristina Costantini (Sally), Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Folktales), Brittany Shyne (Seeds), and Julie Forrest Wyman (The Tallest Dwarf) about how each of them chose the respective style and form for each of their films. This talk is free and open to the public, RSVP required.
Attendee Information
Cristina Costantini’s Sally, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s Folktales, Brittany Shyne’s Seeds, and Julie Forrest Wyman’s The Tallest Dwarf are all in the 68th San Francisco International Film Festival program.
Kathleen Lingo is an independent documentary producer known for her creative vision, entrepreneurial spirit, keen eye for new talent, and groundbreaking projects. She recently launched Lingo on Docs, her own Substack publication.
Previously, as executive producer of The New York Times Op-Docs, she worked with directors like Errol Morris, Garrett Bradley, Geeta Ghandbhir and Roger Ross Williams, Laura Nix and Lucy Walker on films for the series. During her tenure she oversaw 250 documentaries that garnered three Oscar nominations, ten Emmy nominations, three Emmy wins, two Peabody Awards, and two IDA Awards for Best Short Form Series.
When Cristina Costantini was a little girl in Milwaukee, WI, her contribution to a school mural depicting heroes was a representation of astronaut Sally Ride. Costantini grew up to make Sally, winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. After beginning her career as an investigative journalist, she made her documentary feature debut with Science Fair (2018), winner of audience awards as Sundance and SXSW. Her other features include Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado (2020) and Own the Room (2021).
Heidi Ewing is a partner with Rachel Grady in Loki Films. Their prolific collaboration has yielded features, shorts, and series episodes. In 2020, they made Love Fraud, a miniseries that was nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series. She made her narrative directing debut with I Carry You with Me (2020), winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT Innovator Award and Best of NEXT! Audience Award and a Film Independent Spirit Awards nominee for Best First Feature.
Rachel Grady made her directorial debut with Mad Justice (2004). A year later, she co-directed with Heidi Ewing The Boys of Baraka (Festival 2005), a News & Documentary Emmy Awards nominee and the winner of an NAACP Image Award. Among their feature collaborations are Oscar® nominee Jesus Camp (2006), 12th & Delaware (2010), Detropia (2012), Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You (2016), One of Us (2017), and Endangered (2022).
Based in Dayton, OH, Brittany Shyne is an independent filmmaker and cinematographer who seeks to convey the complexity of everyday life in her films. She received her MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University and her BFA in Motion Pictures from Wright State University. She is an alumna of the Chicken & (Egg)celerator Lab and was a 2020-2022 Firelight Media Documentary Fellow. Seeds, her first documentary feature, won the Sundance Film Festival’s Documentary Grand Jury Prize.
Julie Forrest Wyman is a filmmaker whose award-winning work has been shown internationally in theatrical, festival, and television venues. Her films investigate the body: locating, exploring, and inventing various situations in which the codes, conditions, and visceral experiences of physicality defy expectation. Her films include A Boy Named Sue (2000) and Strong! (2012). She holds an MFA degree from UC San Diego’s Visual Arts program. She was a 2019 SFFILM FilmHouse resident and The Tallest Dwarf was the recipient of an SFFILM Rainin Filmmakers with Disabilities Grant.
