Documentary and fiction, so far, so close

Fiction has always drawn on reality and the documentary approach, while documentaries have always borrowed their script structures from fiction. Some filmmakers have built up a protean body of work, inventing for each film a gesture consistent with the narrative project, whether documentary or fiction. Others have freed themselves from categories, claiming nothing other than cinema as the common territory of fiction and documentary.
The term “hybridization” has recently emerged to define certain films, whose devices claim to be both documentary and fiction. It’s like the promise of a new genre that would finally settle the question of reality, document and imagination. A term that the market is now integrating into its economic strategy, to give films greater visibility. While the fictional codes that dominate the film industry influence the way films are written and financed, the documentary codes are becoming an artistic asset on the market.

In this context, what is hybridization all about? A vagueness that it would be in our interest to maintain in terms of institutional and economic strategy? Or is it a genuine area of research for films based on this possible blending of genres?
Is this not an opportunity for documentary to reassert its value as a model of craftsmanship and experimentation, free from the heavy-handed manufacturing practices of the industry, and which can also concern fiction that is written outside any convention?

Moderated by: Romain Lefebvre, teacher, critic (Cahiers du Cinéma, Revue Débordements)

With :

• Lila Pinell
   — filmmaker (Le Roi David [2021]; Kiss & Cry [2017], Boucle Piqué [2014], Nos fiançailles [2011], co-directed with Chloé Mahieu)
• Joy Sorman
   — author, novelist (Le Témoin, ed. Flammarion, 2024) ; President of the Innovation Fund Commission, CNC
• Thomas Hakim
   — Producer, Petit Chaos (A Night Of Knowing Nothing de Payal Kapadia [2021], Koban Lozoù de Brieuc Schieb [2022], The Moon Also Rises de Yuyan Wang [2024])
• Yolande Zauberman
   — cinéaste (Classified People [1987], Would you have sex with an Arab ? [2011], M [2019], etc.)
• José-Luis Guerín
   — cinéaste (Innisfree [1990], Train of Shadows [1997], En Construcción [2000], The Academy of Muses [2015], etc.)
  

The Round Table is preceded by an introductory discussion between Pascale Cassagnau (PhD in art history and art critic, in charge of audiovisual and new media funds at the CNAP) and Joy Sorman, author, novelist, President of the Innovation Fund Commission, CNC.