As part of its drive to help broaden the skills of local filmmakers and improve the standard of local filmmaking, the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) is hosting a documentary masterclass with acclaimed director Nick Broomfield at the ttff/15 (15�29 September).
The masterclass takes place on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad, from 10.00am�4.00pm each day. It is open to anyone who has made at least one short or feature-length documentary. The cost is $300 for both days, including drinks and snacks, and pre-registration is required. Call 621-0709 to register.
In this masterclass, Broomfield will take participants through his signature way of making a documentary. He will illustrate his analysis with clips from his work, focusing his attention on a few key films. His aim will be to show how documentaries can be made to tell compelling stories and connect emotionally with audiences, avoiding the pitfalls of didacticism to which many documentary films are prone.
One of the most heralded documentary filmmakers of our era, Nick Broomfield has 30 films to his credit. A graduate of the National Film School of Great Britain, he began his career with the film Who Cares (1970) about slum clearance in Liverpool. His groundbreaking film Juvenile Liaison (1976, co-directed by Joan Churchill), about how young offenders are dealt with by the British police, was banned for several years.
Originally a practitioner of the observational mode of filmmaking, Broomfield began placing himself as a character in his films in the late 1980s. This technique–much imitated by the likes of Michael Moore and others–is now the hallmark of his unique style and has led to a more investigative type of filmmaking.
This style can be seen in such acclaimed films as Biggie and Tupac (2002), about the deaths of hip-hop stars Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur; Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003), about notorious murderer Aileen Wuornos; Sarah Palin: You Betcha! (2011), about the former US Republican vice presidential candidate; and Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2014), about a serial killer in Los Angeles whose crimes went unexamined by the police for decades.
Both Tales of the Grim Sleeper and Biggie and Tupac will screen at ttff/15. Broomfield will be present to answer audience questions at screenings of both films.
For more information about the screenings and the rest of the ttff/15, visit ttfilmfestival.com.