Ethics of Documentary Film

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.

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.

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures IntroductionPart I. Ethics and Gender1. Khady Sylla’s scenes of solidarity, Laura McMahon2. Mediating the ‘I’: hauntings and the imagined witness, Jill Daniels3. Agnès Varda: The Ethics of Discretion, Agnieszka Piotrowska4. Documentary a Feminist gesture in Post-colonial Zimbabwe, Charmaine Dambuza5. A Camera of One’s Own – domestic spaces and autobiographical documentaries, Patricia NogueiraPart II. Ethics and Participation6. Polyphonic Communities: New Methods for Documentary Ethics, Dale Hudson, Claudia Costa Pederson, and Patricia R. Zimmermann7. Documenting Dalit Women— Their Journey from Tyrannies to Triumphs, Priyanka Singh8. The Missing documentary filmmaking ethics in India, Narendra Kaushik9. The Challenge of Establishing and Maintaining Ethical Norms in U.S. Documentary Production, Patricia Aufderheide10. Exploitation and documentary contributors, Emily Coleman11. Responsibility of representation – ethics of transcultural filmmaking practices, Agata LulkowskaPart III. Ethics and History12. Beyond Image: Ethical Sensitivity in Baltic New Wave Documentaries, Teisi Ligi13. Ethics and Images of History in Documentary Film, Elizabeth Cowie14. The Redemptive Power of Art: traumatic memory, generational art, and women’s documentary, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis15. Censorship, Anti-censorship, and Independent Documentaries in China, Sabrina Qiong YuPart IV. Ethics and Future Technologies16. Carbon: The Unauthorised Biography (2021) and the Route Towards an Environmentally Ethical Eco-Documentary, Cristina Formenti17. Artificial Intelligence in documentary filmmaking: the ethics of deepfakes, Dominic LeesIndex