“Digital Sound Design and Aestheticized Documentary Cinema”

This presentation unpacks a paradox facing contemporary documentary: most filmmakers are aware of how constructed the sound is for even the most realistic documentaries, while much contemporary discourse around documentary “truth” focuses on the digital manipulation of the image. Even scholarship in the field either privileges the visual or focuses on avant-garde approaches to film sound.

This talk analyzes the sound design of what can be deemed the "festival film" style of documentary. Works like Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa, Ukraine/Germany, 2016), Toponimia (Jonathan Perel, Argentina, 2015), Kiruna - A Brand New World (Greta Stocklassa, Sweden, 2019), and Pipeline (Vitaly Mansky, Russia, 2012) use sound design in ways that are aestheticized yet rarely break the conventions of sonic verisimilitude. Drawing on the possibilities of digital mixing, these films’ soundscapes correspond to the overall distinctive approach to documentary filmmaking common on the film festival circuit today.

This event is free and open to the public.