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Contested Realities: Pseudodocumentary and Other Staged Events

With the success of films such as the improvisational works of Christopher Guest and television comedies such as The Office, the language of nonfiction cinema has become increasingly scrutinized, satirized and reconstituted.  This series presents an overview of some of the more compelling works which use reflexive strategies to challenge the boundaries between fiction and documentary. Rather than more recent attempts to employ these conventions as a tool for parody, these works pose more challenging questions about truthful modes of representation in cinema.

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Four Masters: Tarkovsky / Sembene / Akerman / Kiarostami

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Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

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The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

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From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

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a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

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a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil

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Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

Carol for Another Christmas

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Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy