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The Ethics of Documentary Film

Edited by Agnieszka Piotrowska

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£24.99

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Published 29 January 2027

About this book

A comprehensive re-examination of the ethics versus history and knowledge debate within documentary film

  • Includes chapters by leading documentary film experts, including Patricia Aufderheide, Elizabeth Cowie and Sandy Flitterman-Lewis
  • Utilises Donna Haraway's concept of tentacular thinking to promote eclectic methodology and a variety of theoretical paradigms
  • The volume builds on the work of established continental thinkers such as Emanuel Levinas and Jacques Lacan to introduce the reader to different approaches from different parts of the world
  • Films discussed include Elena, The Gleaners and I, Flee, Fresh Cherries, Writing with Fire, A Filmless Festival and A Minor Genocide

Documentary film has been an important vehicle to interrogate the world since the inception of film more than a hundred years ago. The Ethics of Documentary Film reformulate some of the foundational notions in documentary films studies and practice, relating to archive and the production of knowledge. Published in a particular moment in time, post pandemic and in the middle of the climate change debates and the traumas of new conflicts in the world, it gives voice to all of the important contemporary debates and offers ideas about different international approaches to documentary. With particular focus on the question of to what extent a documentary film can be defined as an ethical project, the various contributions look at issues of history, the hidden stories, and issues of the ethics of representation to provide new insights into the role documentary film can play within society.

Reviews

This visionary book renews inquiry into the ethics of documentary showing careful attention to theory and criticism as well to the quandaries of film practice. Its beautifully conceived sections hold chapters from authorities in the field and newer writers, offering live engagement with gender, race, trauma and ecology, amongst other issues. Movingly it is dedicated to the memory of Patricia Zimmermann, who is also an inspiration in its pages.
In an age of fakery and bombast, the documentary film has taken on an ever-greater weight and responsibility. Where matters of Truth and Beauty may once have reigned, nothing now matters more than the Good. Does what we make and watch help or harm? Who benefits – maker, subject, sponsor? Who is silenced? Can ethics be situational, variable owing to historical and cultural context? These questions and more provide the focus for this long overdue study of ethics in documentary film. Broadly conceived and elegantly curated by Agnieszka Piotrowska, by turns philosophical and pragmatic, the volume boasts a truly global reach in its shared obsession with the ethical questions that should haunt all those who care about nonfiction film.
Table of contents

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Introduction

Part I. Ethics and Gender

1. Khady Sylla’s scenes of solidarity, Laura McMahon

2. Mediating the ‘I’: hauntings and the imagined witness, Jill Daniels

3. Agnès Varda: The Ethics of Discretion, Agnieszka Piotrowska

4. Documentary a Feminist gesture in Post-colonial Zimbabwe, Charmaine Dambuza

5. A Camera of One’s Own – domestic spaces and autobiographical documentaries, Patricia Nogueira

Part II. Ethics and Participation

6. Polyphonic Communities: New Methods for Documentary Ethics, Dale Hudson, Claudia Costa Pederson, and Patricia R. Zimmermann

7. Documenting Dalit Women— Their Journey from Tyrannies to Triumphs, Priyanka Singh

8. The Missing documentary filmmaking ethics in India, Narendra Kaushik

9. The Challenge of Establishing and Maintaining Ethical Norms in U.S. Documentary Production, Patricia Aufderheide

10. Exploitation and documentary contributors, Emily Coleman

11. Responsibility of representation – ethics of transcultural filmmaking practices, Agata Lulkowska


Part III. Ethics and History

12. Beyond Image: Ethical Sensitivity in Baltic New Wave Documentaries, Teisi Ligi

13. Ethics and Images of History in Documentary Film, Elizabeth Cowie

14. The Redemptive Power of Art: traumatic memory, generational art, and women’s documentary, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis

15. Censorship, Anti-censorship, and Independent Documentaries in China, Sabrina Qiong Yu

Part IV. Ethics and Future Technologies

16. Carbon: The Unauthorised Biography (2021) and the Route Towards an Environmentally Ethical Eco-Documentary, Cristina Formenti

17. Artificial Intelligence in documentary filmmaking: the ethics of deepfakes, Dominic Lees

Index

About the author

Agnieszka Piotrowska

Agnieszka Piotrowska, PhD, is an award-winning international creative practice researcher, educator, psychologist and filmmaker known for her dedication to inclusivity. Based in the UK, Professor Piotrowska has presented her work internationally, inspiring others through cross-cultural collaboration. She is a member of the General Council of the Visible Evidence, the most important global network for documentary studies. Formerly Head of the School of Film, Media and Performing Arts at the University for the Creative Arts, she currently supervises PhD students at Staffordshire and Oxford Brookes Universities. From 2018 to 2024, she was Professor of Film and Cultural Studies at the University of Gdansk, directing the Visible Evidence conference there. She has given keynotes internationally, focusing on the links between theory and practice. Her acclaimed documentary Married to the Eiffel Tower and her new award-winning experimental film work in Zimbabwe have received global recognition. Professor Piotrowska’s extensive publications on psychoanalysis, culture and cinema include Psychoanalysis and Ethics in Documentary Film (2014, 2023) Black and White: Cinema, Politics, and the Arts in Zimbabwe (2017) and the monograph The Nasty Woman in Cinema and Culture (2019), as well as four edited collections.