Documentary filmmaking has quickly become the language of advocacy about issues in the developing world, opening wide the door for voices to be heard on anything from street children in Burundi to human trafficking in Southeast Asia with a rawness and freshness that elicits awareness and hopefully, action.

Images are powerful, and moving images, better yet. Documentary filmmaking provides the platform to tell a story, one in which the viewer is invited in to become a part of relationships, tears, smiles, excrutiating circumstances and incredible accomplishments. Stories and narratives are ingrained within us; we are each walking storybooks, we compose a bigger story, and there is one bigger yet, that has already been written. And when we are able to voice the narratives of those who otherwise would not have a way to speak to a much larger audience, we become ushers, and this has the opportunity to change things.

When someone is able to participate in a story and feel a part of it, they become motivated to act, as is the case often when someone physically becomes woven into relationships and circumstances in a particular place. Most people, however, can not go to far reaching countries.

And so documentaries serve as the bridge, between the devloping world and the west, to breakdown barriers, expose, teach, move, stir and change the ones who see. So film on.

• 04/12/2007 10:49
  • 03/23/2007 11:39
  • 03/23/2007 09:57