Before the festival officially drew to a close last Saturday, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a panel about documentary ethics in the Cannes Docs section of the Marché du Film. Curated by the Documentary Association of Europe and presented with American Documentary, the live event featured a stellar lineup of speakers, including Kiyoko McCrae from Chicken and Egg Pictures; Adam Piron from the Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program; Alemberg Ang, a Philippines-based producer and filmmaker; and Viv Li, a Chinese filmmaker based in Berlin. Titled “Towards a Universal Values System in Documentary,” the panel explored a number of fascinating questions, such as what equitable collaboration looks like in nonfiction filmmaking, what it means to gain the consent of your subjects, and who gets to tell which stories.
