Are Documentarians Liars?

The 2022 East Doc Platform was one of the worst weeks of my life. It’s an amazing annual event held by Prague’s Institute of Documentary Film for film professionals to network and showcase their work, but as an intern on the team, I suffered. I slept an hour each night, spending my days filming inside the windowless cinema and my nights editing Instagram Reels on my bed. Fortunately, there was a subtle ingenuity to the featured filmmakers and panelists that made the whole experience a little more bearable. I didn’t realize the sheer amount of existential questions I would come to ask myself while studying abroad, but the discussions sparked during the East Doc Platform made me reevaluate what I knew about the truth. Could anybody accurately capture reality? Did it matter?

It all started on day one with the screening of The Filmmaker’s House, a piece illustrating the vibrant characters that entered and left the director, Marc Isaacs’, house. It was a personal film about family, hospitality, and love that appeared to be an unassuming documentary but later revealed itself as a completely staged and scripted project. I loved it. I filmed Isaacs’ lecture the next day, and when he began discussing his work the audience immediately grew louder. 

One woman who had already raised her hand five times passionately grabbed the mic to share her thoughts. “It felt like I was just a puppet in a game!” she exclaimed, stumbling over her words. “I was so touched by the story and then everything was taken away.” 

Isaacs smiled, looking absolutely giddy from the excited responses. “You know, I’ve had students tell me that they hated my film.” he said, shrugging. “But the feelings were real weren’t they? I asked real people to play themselves and simply placed them in unexpected situations. I just provoked real responses.”

The next film I watched that week was at Kino Světozor, a small cinema lodged between a Pizza Hut and Costa Coffees. My supervisor, Veronika Zýková, stood at the front of the theater, anxiously pacing in front of the English subtitles. 

The war in Ukraine had begun in the middle of my internship, and our office quickly became frantic with the ongoing news. Desperate attempts were made to contact Ukranian filmmakers- How was their work? Were they safe? Were they alive? Each week only afforded new tensions as people tried to piece together the truth.

All the proceeds from this film were going towards the Ukrainian effort, and No Obvious Signs directed by Alina Horlova told the story of a Ukrainian soldier’s trauma as she attempted to reintegrate herself within society. I could see my supervisor’s fingers fidgeting nervously while she introduced the documentary, missing the little ornate mug she often waved around to illustrate her words. It’s a powerful, intense piece, she said. “Beautiful but hard to watch.”

Once the lights finally dimmed we were introduced to Oksana, a rather normal looking woman with a voice that sounded too soft for combat. The documentary was one extensive interview that dispersed long, still shots unfavorably throughout the piece and felt stagnant despite constant background noise. I didn’t understand Oksana’s pain. 

When I began ruminating the film I realized that this very disconnect was what Horlova was getting at. As I reflected on each intimate shot I understood that this documentary, like many others, was trying to capture an emotional truth rather than an objective reality. Subdued danger, reflections of permanently altered lives - how else would we learn about the different ways people stumble? The film allowed us to experience Oksana’s fear as she prayed to God through metal train walls, paralyzed by the train station’s overwhelming noise intertwined with memories of wartime clamor.

Between the week-long East Doc screenings, I took a quick trip to Copenhagen and experienced a real life story firsthand. Instead of Oksana’s pensive terror or the cozy initmacy of Isaac’s characters, I encountered a lady who looked up brightly, carrying a sense of wonder. I had been on my way back to my Airbnb when I saw her waiting at the subway station, wandering about the platform. Her widened eyes gave an appearance of pleasant surprise, and she quickly approached me for directions. “Do you know what that says?” she asked in accented English, pointing at a Danish sign on the train.

When I told her I didn’t speak Danish she went on to introduce herself as 26 year old Sofia, sharing that her phone had shut down on the way to her hotel. “I’m Ukrainian so the trains and hotel are free, I just need to find my way back.” she told me. I put the address into Google Maps and realized that she was headed in the wrong direction. When I let her know she looked perplexed, only to look up again with a smile. “I can just get on the opposite train later!” she said. Sofia waited with me until my train pulled into the station, determinedly going the wrong way. 

“What about the rest of your family?” I asked, wondering why this lady was alone and lost at night. She assured me that they were safe, but would only talk about her 17 year old sister living in the UK- the same sister who was learning Korean and had just been approved for a 10 year American visa.

Sofia then quickly changed the subject and told me she loved Denmark but didn’t know anyone here. “Danish is so strange” she said behind her hand, trying and failing to whisper. “How about you, why are you here?” she questioned. When I told her I was studying abroad in Prague for journalism she interjected enthusiastically. “I wanted to go into journalism too! I was going to study it because I love telling stories and documentary films are so cool but, you know, things happen.” 

She paused and fell into silence, letting the train’s ambient noise drown her out. “It’s hard to tell the truth these days. Maybe I’ll just get a job in marketing. Do you think that’s a good idea?” she asked softly. 

Sofia got off after two stops, walking back to the platform where she stood and looked back up at the Danish signs.

On the last day of the East Doc Platform there was a discussion between the filmmakers who created 1970, a documentary representing the untold stories of communist Poland. The director, Tomasz Wolski, shared that a lot of archival footage was actually incomplete, either featuring only audio or video. He had taken the liberty to manufacture a lot of these incomplete pieces and create a cohesive film for the viewers. 

“So you’re a liar,” someone from the audience said with a laugh. 

After a moment of thoughtful silence Wolski nodded. 

“Yes, I am a liar, but that’s how you tell a story- that’s how you survive.” 

During the week I spent at East Doc Platform, I learned that it’s impossible to replicate an exact reality with journalism. All we can do is try our best, and sometimes the truth matters less than the lived experiences of individuals. There are stories that need to be told, and with an accumulation of diverse narratives we create “a whole greater than the sum of its parts.” (Aristotle)