THE DOCUMENTARY FORM has in recent years spurred rigorous discussions about the ethics of those who have practiced it and their engagement with those in front of the camera. The observation of the centennial of Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North in 2022, for example, coalesced around considerations of appropriation, representation, extraction, and the positionality and power of those who wield the camera.
This past year saw a confluence of developments here in the US that have amplified ongoing conversations around ethics, accountability, and the duty of care. The Documentary Accountability Working Group (DAWG), an ad hoc coalition of filmmakers, educators, activists, and thought leaders, unveiled its Framework for Values, Ethics, and Accountability in Nonfiction Filmmaking (docaccountability.org/framework) last September, the result of over two years of convenings with filmmakers, documentary participants, educators, non-profit executives, and funders. Many of the same ethical questions being dealt with by the DAWG are addressed in the doc Subject from Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexiera, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Festival. It centres the experiences of five participants in prominent documentaries over the past 25 years, and serves as both a case study and a means of putting into practice some of the principles that the framework proposes.
Documentary Accountability Working Group
The seeds of what would become DAWG were planted following the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, when Sonya Childress, then a Perspective Fund senior fellow, now co-director of Color Congress, reached out to Molly Murphy and
