Hope: towards an ethical framework of collaborative practice in documentary filmmaking

Abstract

There appears to be a renewed interest in the ethics of documentary filmmaking among academics and writers in Australia and elsewhere. It is also clear from my own and other documentary makers’ experience that not only are ethical decisions in our daily work of great importance and concern but that the contemporary filmmaking environment, greatly influenced as it is by the needs and demands of the television broadcasters, can militate against ethical behaviour by filmmakers, not least in their relationships with the participants in their films. The increasing ‘production line’ nature of the industry and inherent contradictions between formal release forms and the need for filmmakers to estab..