Cameraperson
SECTION: International Forum 2017
SCREENINGS
Thursday, 28.09., 7.45 p.m., kommkino Q&A with Kirsten Johnson
Monday, 02.10., 5.30 p.m., kommkino
SYNOPSIS
What does it mean to film another person? How does it affect that person – and what does it do to the one who films? Kirsten Johnson is one of the most notable cinematographers working in documentary cinema today, having shot CITIZENFOUR, HAPPY VALLEY, FAHRENHEIT 9/11, THE OATH, THE INVISIBLE WAR, and dozens of other essential documentaries. With her visually radical memoir CAMERAPERSON, Johnson presents an extraordinary and deeply poetic film of her own, drawing on the remarkable and varied footage that she has shot and reframing it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected
her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between story-telling and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented in so many other directors’ films as one reflection of truth into another kind of story – one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
KIRSTEN JOHNSON
Kirsten Johnson graduated from Brown University in 1987, with a BA in Fine Arts and Literature. After two years in West Africa working on local fiction and documentary film projects, she attended FEMIS (the French National Film School) in Paris. Since graduating from their cinematography department in 1994, she has directed 4 shorts and works frequently as a cinematographer. Her first feature film was Foreign Body. Deadline (co-director and cinematographer) premiered at Sundance 2004. Asylum, a short documentary
shot in Ghana, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2004. As a cinematographer she has collaborated
among others with Laura Poitras on the Academy Award winner Citizenfour and The Oath.
FILMOGRAPHY
Foreign Body (1996), Derrida (2002), Asylum (2003), Darfur Now (2006), Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008), The Oath (2010), Citizenfour (2014), Cameraperson (2016)
WEBSITE
http://www.camerapersonfilm.com/
