The Ethics of Documentary Film

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

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.