Stories of freedom: A reflexive account of collaboration and ethics in documentary filmmaking

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the ethics of making films with and about real people in which they will be publicly and openly identified. It springs from my desire to develop a model of collaboration (or co-creation) that can significantly even up the asymmetric power relationship between filmmaker and participants, which favours the former, and provide ethical transparency not just in the documentary-making process but within the filmic product itself. The ultimate aim is to produce a more empathic filmmaking result by working with participants who are simultaneously the subjects and the raison d’être of the endeavour – a result that doesn’t necessarily make greater claims to truth but is ..