Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.
New Podcast: Sophie Fiennes on The Four Quartets & documenting theatre on film
Hello Reader,
In today's episode, Sophie Fiennes discusses her new documentary The Four Quartets, in which she captures the stage play directed by and starring her brother, actor Ralph Fiennes. For the production, Ralph Fiennes adapted the T.S. Eliot poem for the stage — which was never originally intended to be performed that way — and then toured this production around the UK in 2021.
The second episode of our Creative Nonfiction Film podcast season is now available
Click here to read the show notes (where you can also listen!)
Sophie Fiennes’s film of The Four Quartets is neither live capture nor a full adaptation of the play. Instead, Fiennes remarkably documents the theatre production on screen, maintaining all the original lighting and blocking. Her choices of framing and camera movement really puts us in the black box theatre with Ralph Fiennes. Unlike most recorded theatre, where there is a constant sense of information loss, Sophie Fiennes gives us a sense of the theatrical space so we get a better sense of what we’re missing when we’re missing it. It’s built into Sophie Fiennes’ direction.
Sophie Fiennes discusses Ralph Fiennes’s production, the challenges of documenting the play on screen, and how working with Declan Donnellan of Cheek by Jowl just before she shot The Four Quartets changed how she thinks about acting and theatre.
Catch up with the whole season
Listen to our brand new 5-episode series on Creative nonfiction filmmaking.
Creative nonfiction films, otherwise known as hybrid or experimental documentaries, push the boundaries of how we traditionally conceive of documentary.
In this season, we’ll introduce you to some of the best creative nonfiction filmmakers working today through discussions with them on their latest films and their approach to nonfiction filmmaking.
Listen to Ep 1: An Introduction to the season and creative nonfiction
Don't miss a single episode of the new season. Subscribe to the podcast today.
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Join the conversation about Creative Nonfiction this month
This is the first episode in a podcast season that we're running to spotlight creative and innovative approaches to nonfiction filmmaking — films that push the boundaries of what documentary can be.
Help us boost that conversation by listening and sharing the episode and the season.
| Listen to Episode #2 |
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What's coming this season
Over the course of the next four weeks, we'll introduce you to different approaches to creative nonfiction filmmaking — from documenting theatre, to live documentary, to telling internal stories — through interviews with filmmakers at the top of their game.
Episode 3 (June 7): Philippe Falardeau on Lac-Mégantic: This is Not an Accident and reinventing the true crime doc
Episode 4 (June 14): Sam Green on 32 Sounds and live documentary
Episode 5 (June 21): Penny Lane on Confessions of a Good Samaritan and telling subjective, internal stories
Don't miss a single episode. Subscribe to the podcast today.
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Want to learn more about Creative Nonfiction film?
The best quick introduction to Creative Nonfiction is our masterclass with filmmakers Carol Nguyen (No Crying at the Dinner Table) and Penny Lane (NUTS!, Hail Satan, Listening to Kenny G)
Watch our masterclass on Creative Nonfiction with Carol Nguyen and Penny Lane
If you want to delve deeper into how different filmmakers define and approach creative nonfiction films, and how this leads to unique storytelling approaches, get our ebook Subjective Realities.
Get Seventh Row's ebook on Creative Nonfiction Film
Discover how ‘creative nonfiction’ documentaries, otherwise known as hybrid or experimental documentaries, push the boundaries of what we traditionally conceive of documentary to be.
Subjective realities is a six part ebook composed of interviews and essays. Discover the myriad forms of nonfiction filmmaking, from animation to archival and beyond, and find out what funding structures exist to make them possible.
Subjective realities focuses on how the past ten years have changed the course of nonfiction filmmaking. Creative approaches to the medium have become more mainstream; for example, animated documentaries (e.g., Flee) and personal documentaries (e.g., Dick Johnson is Dead) are increasingly being programmed alongside more traditional documentaries and receiving wider releases.
Whether you’re a nonfiction fanatic, or a skeptic who’s tired of watching boring info dump docs, Subjective realities will be an eye-opening read.
This is our second book on nonfiction filmmaking; the first is In their own words: Documentary Masters.
| Get your copy of Subjective Realities today! |
Best,
Alex Heeney
Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row
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Seventh Row
Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.
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