Death & Documentary

There is only one thing we can be sure of: we all are going to die. Death is unavoidable as much as it is part of life. Death is all around us in daily life: an animal that we eat, a plant that dries, a lost love, a factory closure, a neighborhood which is changing… Nonetheless, death doesn’t necessarily mean finality but rather a process of change, transition, breakage, and rupture.

The course Death and Documentary will examine a number of different approaches to death and how they can be portrayed in documentary film. Through a series of lectures and screenings, students are invited to meditate about their own mortality and to express themselves through the creative production of documentary films, portraying death in a wide range of interpretations. The structure of the course starts with simple projects and move to more complex ones, in a hands-on project approach.

The course, designed and taught by professors Patrícia Nogueira (ESMAD) and Andrew Garisson (UTAustin), aims the specialization on documentary film and will run both in Portugal and the USA, under the Global Classroom program. The classes are synchronous with the USA class, allowing the interaction between students and professors. Throughout 60 class hours students will be encourage to reflect upon such a universal topic as Death, questioning the meaning of life and one’s own existence, exploring differences and similarities with their peers, in a multicultural environment, and framing their documentaries through such reasoning.

This Global Classroom program includes Professor Andrew Garisson’s visit to the Portuguese class during a week, notes on student work and rough cuts from both professors and final public screenings with the films from both classes.

After the festivals’ circuit, all the documentaries will be published in the Class’s website, hosted at the UT Austin webpage.

Course details:

Photography: Nanook of the North, Robert Flaherty