Radical Documentary and Global Crises

"This notion of instrumentalizing images [in Radical Documentary and Global Crises] is highly original, as it situates the question of documentary at the fulcrum of conflict, people, place, and justice, rather than simply on the level of artistic complexity."—Patricia R. Zimmermann, author of Documentary Across Platforms

"Technicist hype aside, there is a new agenda emerging in documentary film studies and it is grounded in digital's most significant affordance—its accessibility. And nowhere does this development more profoundly resonate than on the radical non-fiction film tradition. Radical Documentary and Global Crises connects a number of current carefully distinguished deployments of documentary media in the service of social activism with a century of engagé filmmaking going back to Vertov, Shub, and Ivens, through the Leagues and Collectives to WITNESS and this global sample of 'militant evidence.' Ryan Watson is to be thanked for providing so clear a signpost to this crucial agenda item."—Brian Winston, University of Lincoln

"Ryan Watson's book is a compelling study of documentary filmmaking from below. Historically informed and theoretically sophisticated, his analysis connects exciting new initiatives from around the world with a long history of radical filmmaking to arrive at a surprisingly hopeful assessment of the role of radical documentary filmmaking in the future."—Nadia Yaqub, author of Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution

"Radical Documentary and Global Crisis feels both like a much-needed acknowledgment of the significant work so many activist filmmakers have put forth in the modern age and at the same time, a call for more activist, "radical" filmmaking in the coming years as generations will continue to have more and more access to potentially liberating force of documentary film."—Michael T. Barry Jr., Activist History Review

"Addressing ongoing contradictions of the digital age, Radical Documentary and Global Crises explores the productive mobilization of an often-overwhelming proliferation of digital evidence; how traumatic imagery can generate political fervor rather than anaesthetize affect; and how to mobilize against a rash of human rights abuses that cannot be readily – or equitably – perceived globally. And like any good radical documentary, Watson's book lights a fire in the belly of its reader. Radical Documentary and Global Crises will be of interest to scholars of documentary film, activist media, nontheatrical media, new media, and global media cultures, as well as journalists, lawyers, policy-makers, and anyone concerned with the political potential of cellphone cameras."—Madison Brown, Northwestern University, Studies in Documentary Film