Following a retrospective of his work at the Sheffield documentary festival,the director talks approximately Britain’s anti-immigration voters, the nuanced prejudice of the movie industry and the sheer grind of film-makingJohn Akomfrah’s films are not easy to define. Before we meet, or he is interviewed on stage at the Sheffield documentary festival,and recalls a meeting with Channel 4 in which his work was described as “constructed film” – a term that amuses him because it seems to contain a slight.“It wasn’t that I found the word ‘constructed’ an insult, because I’ve never really bought the idea that there’s a brand of documentary that’s not constructed, or ” he says later over a strong coffee outside a mute hotel. “The thing which actually does a disservice to observational cinema is the idea that it happens without rules or insight or expertise. So what starts off as an attempt to denigrate the work of so-called constructive film-makers like myself ends up insulting people who don’t build constructed films,because it just says they carry out it organically and naturally.” He pauses. “It’s fucking tough making films work.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com