Seven Ways to Tell the Truth in Documentaries

Level Beginner - No previous experience required
Must be at least 15 years old
Language English
Date SAT, SEP 5, 2026 · 18:00 – 20:00
Cost Free for Members - Join to attend
Location Online
Contact linda@berlinfilmcommunity.com
Sign in https://berlinfilmcommunity.com/course.php?slug=seven-ways-to-tell-the-truth-in-documentaries

In this 2-hour seminar, we will explore the different modes documentary filmmakers use to shape reality on screen — from the authoritative "voice of God" of expository film to the raw immediacy of direct cinema, the self-aware provocations of reflexive work, and the visual poetry of the experimental mode. Since the term "documentary" in 1926 was coined as the "creative treatment of actuality," filmmakers have been negotiating the tension between truth and construction — and every choice of style is also a choice about how you relate to your subject, your camera, and your audience.
This session challenges participants to move beyond instinctively imitating the documentaries they've grown up watching, and instead to consciously identify which mode — or combination of modes — actually serves the story they want to tell, through concrete film examples and case studies drawn from key movements in documentary history.
Whether you are a filmmaker, student, or simply curious about how nonfiction storytelling really works, this workshop invites you to rethink how you look at — and make — documentary film.

What You Will Learn

• The seven core documentary modes — expository, observational, participatory, reflexive, performative, and poetic/experimental — and what distinguishes each
• The historical roots of direct cinema and cinéma vérité, and why two nearly-identical movements diverged philosophically
• How the presence (or absence) of the filmmaker changes the ethics and meaning of a scene
• How narration, image, and structure work differently depending on mode
• How to recognize which mode a film — or your own footage — is actually working in
• How mixing modes (as most contemporary documentaries do) can serve a specific creative intention
• How to identify which mode resonates with your own voice and the story you want to tell

Workshop Mentor
Linda Paganelli is an artist, anthropologist, and filmmaker integrating more than human perspectives in her storytelling. Drawing on over 13 years of experience across diverse contexts, Linda guides participants toward non-extractive, ethically grounded visual practices that challenge dominant knowledge paradigms and foreground embodied positionalities. Since 2018, she has been working with More-Than-Human frameworks, creating short documentaries such as Journey of Waves and Imprinted, as well as installations including Carbon Spa in collaboration with scientists from the university of Twente (Netherlands) and ECO-MOURNING developed through the Community of Practice with CitizensLab (Germany). Her practice center interspecies relationships, ecological interdependence, and the agency of non-human beings in visual storytelling.