Resources

New Resources for Ethical Filmmaking

The documentary field is experiencing a quiet revolution around documentary ethics, revisiting long-cherished ideas and putting more Emphasis on the filmmaker/participant relationship and participant care. Here’s a link to the Peace is Loud page with resources for ethical filmmaking. Huge shoutout to Stephanie Palumbo, Margie Ratliff, Jennifer Tiexiera, and countless others for creating these resources and making them available for free.

In the Spotlight: Crucial Questions for Documentary Participants –

This resource helps filmmakers and participants create healthy dialogues about consent, compensation, creative rights, and other pressing issues. co-created by Margie Ratliff and Peace is Loud. Margie is the founding director of the Documentary Participants Empowerment Alliance (DPEA), which aims to bring vital resources to all those who have appeared in or are considering appearing in documentary films.

Holding Ourselves Accountable: A Consent Calendar Resource

Co-created by Jennifer Tiexiera and Peace is Loud, this resource details a model for establishing informed, active consent throughout the filmmaking process. Jennifer is the co-director of the seminal film Subject, which asks “In the Golden Age of Documentary, Who Benefits?” The film explores the life-altering experience of sharing one’s life on screen through key participants of acclaimed documentaries The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, The Wolfpack, Capturing the Friedmans, and The Square.

There are several other helpful resources on the Peace is Loud page for Participant Care, including a case study. Check it out!

Lisa Leeman In Resources, Walk by Me

Awarded MacDowell & Bogliasco Fellowships!

I was awarded a 2024 Macdowell Fellowship and a 2025 Bogliasco Fellowship – both are artist residencies, given to continue writing and editing Walk by Me. A huge honor!

Here’s the list of MacDowell Fellows for Fall 2024/Spring 2025 – i’m honored to be among them. MacDowell is the oldest artist residence in the United States, and they provide uninterrupted time to reflect, innovate, study, practice, and create. My time there was productive and inspiring, and led to several breakthroughs in my editing of Walk by Me. There’s a magic at MacDowell which comes from a combination of artists from different disciplines having the solitude to create in private studios and also come together at dinners, artist shares, trips to the local pond, game nights, and star-watching at the amphitheater. Past Fellows include James Baldwin, Thornton Wilder, Ta-Nahisi Coates, Meredith Monk, Studs Terkel, Suzan-Lori Parks, Aaron Copland, and so many more.

The Bogliasco Center is based on the Italian Ligurian coast near Genoa. We will be 8-10 artists and humanities scholars, who will be doing a mix of creative and scholarly work. I love their emphasis on carefully designed international cohorts, so our work can cross-fertilize each other and echo around the world. Here’s the list of Fellows for Spring 2025. I’m already taking Italian lessons, and can’t wait to have a full month at Bogliasco to continue editing Walk by Me!

admin In Resources

Authorship, Protagonist Agency, and Accountability in Documentary Practice

While making Walk by Me, I’ve been thinking deeply about issues of authorship, protagonist agency, and accountability in documentary practice.

Here’s a thoughtful article calling for accountability from all of us in the documentary eco-system – filmmakers, funders, exhibitors, etc. With pressing questions at the end that we need to all be asking ourselves….

https://www.documentary.org/feature/documentary-future-call-accountability