Cameraperson (2016)

  • dir. Kirsten Johnson 102 min.
  • Pricing Information
  • $7

  • Synopsis
  • Award-winning cinematographer Kirsten Johnson delivers a nuanced portrait of working behind the camera in her critically acclaimed documentary CAMERAPERSON. Cutting together footage from films she’s shot (which range from Michael Moore’s FAHRENHEIT 9/11, to Laura Poitras’ CITIZENFOUR, to Gini Reticker’s PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL, to name a few), Johnson examines her various roles in crafting someone else’s story, whether it be that of the subject or the director she’s working with. This fragmentary method of storytelling coalesces around Johnson’s personal involvement in each shot: we hear her voice behind the camera, we feel her struggle to keep her camera trained on the action in front of her. Johnson’s footage is not only mesmerizing, but also complex: the editing focuses on her ethical complexities when pointing her camera at her subjects, which include postwar survivors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the progression of Alzheimer’s in her mother, daily routines of Nigerian midwives, and her own children. Johnson shares her intimate relationship to the camera in ways that are profoundly moving and beautifully introspective.

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