Producers have been drawn to virtual reality (VR) for its potential to render vivid experiences of nonfiction content. The politics of the platform's affective operation, particularly in relation to distant human others, has been analysed and critiqued. This chapter explores what is at play when that affective potential is deployed within mediated encounters with non-human species and speculative worlds. It considers case studies of VR projects that engage the temporal imagination and that reflect human entanglement with some of the other life forms that we share the planet with. In some of these projects, I argue, we can see the affective power of VR harnessed, not simply to provoke feeling, instead to trouble dominant ‘structures of feeling’ and support new formations of consciousness.

This article looks at the development of teaching on documentary from the perspective of the author's own experience, beginning in the 1970s. It considers the construction of a syllabus, and both the range of readings and of screenings used in what became a rapidly expanding area of study. It reflects on the aims and theories that informed study, the key texts that helped development and examines the difference between Film Studies approaches and the broader frameworks used in media research. Finally, it considers what the formative periods of documentary studies might indicate about the direction and shape of its future.

The two worst disasters in the history of nuclear energy at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986 and Fukushima in Japan in 2011 were followed by reports calling for greater transparency in the interests of the safety of the planet. Part of the response to this call was to give access to documentary filmmakers to the nuclear landscapes created by these accidents. A wider effect has also involved greater access to operating sites with the recognition that the public consent required to operate, close, remediate, and renew nuclear sites requires openness. This chapter explores how the social issue documentary has evolved within the ‘zone of alienation’ and the ‘no man's zone’ and nuclear sites undergoing change. In so doing, the chapter discusses documentary filmmaking as an integral part of a liberal democracy or the “risk society”, as theorized by Ulrich Beck.

This paper reflects on the relationships established between the audio-moving image and Indigenous communities in Brazil, from the arrival and appropriation of video technologies to the development of documentary strategies. It is about expanding the ways of seeing and narrating with Indigenous people, engaging in a radical movement of image production aimed at allowing these subjects, traditionally objects of alterity, to ally themselves with filmmakers and develop their own images resulting in a cinema of action. Brazilian indigenous cinema is thus constituted as a complex field, mainly promoted by the ‘Vídeo nas Aldeias’ (Video in the Villages VNA) project. This paper explores the conceptual aspects involved in these practices, contextualizing their development, and focusing on its testimonial nature, considered as one of the strong axes of its execution.

The Handbook of Documentary is an important go-to resource for practitioners, scholars and students in this burgeoning field. It tackles key topics and debates – from the role of documentary in post-truth culture to the rise of streaming giants (and the implications for national documentary cultures) and the shifting (increasingly hybrid) practices of documentary activism and the professionalization of impact. Featuring work by key figures in international documentary scholarship and talented emerging scholars, the Handbook is a landmark publication for documentary studies in the twenty-first century.

The Handbook is broad in its scope, incorporating historical, theoretical, empirical, and practical scholarship. It is organized around ten key themes/debates: What and where is documentary (studies)?; Documentary in an Age of epistemic uncertainty; Documentary histories; Documentary and the Archive; Audio/Visualities; Documentary Relationalities; Beyond the Anthropocene?; Digital/documentary practices; Documentary and (new) politics?; A golden age? Documentary distribution and funding. Importantly, the Handbook challenges the dominance of Western voices in documentary scholarship, incorporating the voices and practices of practitioners from the Global South.

This article aims to demonstrate the value of applying a star-studies approach to the examination of screenplay archives. This methodological framework is illustrated through a case study of the documents from the collection deposited by director Claude Autant-Lara at the Swiss National Film Archive that relate to the genesis of the film Love Is My Profession (1958). This film is notable for its cast, which includes two leading stars: Jean Gabin, an established actor associated with classical cinema for over two decades, and Brigitte Bardot, a rising icon of the French New Wave. The study reveals how the multiple screenplay variants for this adaptation of a Simenon novel, successively drafted by Autant-Lara, Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, were partly shaped by the involvement of these two stars, whose participation was planned from the project’s inception. Examining specific choices among the many possibilities envisioned highlights the significance of considering screenplays within a socio-historical perspective. This analysis draws on a rich collection of documents including, for example, scattered notes written day by day by the filmmaker, or letters exchanged between him and his producer, who insisted that the romance between the characters played by the two stars take centre stage.