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Why Ignorance Is Bliss for Documentary Filmmaker Nicolas Philibert: ‘The Less I Know in Advance About the Subject, the Better’
Nicolas Philibert, director of 'On the Adamant,' spoke at IDFA about why he doesn't do much research about a subject before filming.
Ignorance is bliss, according to Nicolas Philibert, director of BAFTA nominee “ To Be and to Have ” and Berlin best film winner “ On the Adamant,” discussing his approach to documentary filmmaking at IDFA in Amsterdam. The French filmmaker, whose recent films “The Typewriter and Other Headaches” and “Averroès & Rosa Parks” both screen at IDFA this year, said that “when your intention is too visible, when it is strongly accented, then it is the enemy,” which is a reference to a quote by actor-director André S. Labarthe. One difference between fiction and documentaries is that the director has a duty towards the people in the film because they are “imprisoned in an image,” Young said, quoting Philibert.
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