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The recent devastation casued by the Haitian earthquake has brought us more heartbreaking viewing, and the medium of film has been at its most crucial. Amidst the cataclysm, a group of young Haitians have taken it upon themselves to act as the local voice. At Haiti’s only film school, Ciné Institute which resides in the small seaside town of Jacmel, students went to work instantly with hand-held cameras to capture the devastation. Their powerful testimonals to the wrecked city have been brought by CNN, who broadcast them around the globe, bringing to the world personal and unique perspectives of the earthquake and its devastating effects. These short docs make up a rich document of the disaster with footage of the aftermath and the recent erratic aid efforts.

The Ciné Institute at work

The voice, eyes and camera of disaster survivors were powerfully displayed in the Oscar-nominated Trouble the Water. The doc that included footage shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts, who, with her husband Scott, was trapped in her home in New Orleans by the deadly floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Like the work of the Ciné Institute, this is not a story shot by the news teams, only taking with them a glimpse of the reality on the ground. A glimpse that that the mainstream media will continue to cut and paste, further obscuring the truth. Instead, these mini-docs are made by the very eye witnesses, who have lost family and homes in disaster. Coverage by the Ciné Institute and Trouble the Water team has been a lesson in the ways grassroots journalism succeeds where the mainstream fails.

As Avatar’s synthetic world reigns supreme in the western multiplexes, the Ciné Institute have reaffirmed the importance of human storytelling: ordinary people taking up cameras in times of crisis. Take a look at their videos here.

The nominations for the 2010 Academy Awards have been announced. Not surprisingly the documentary category was left out of the fancy televised nominees show, deemed by the academy not exciting or important enough to be included.

With some groundbreaking additions to factual programming this year it was a tough shortlist to choose from. While I was happy that eco-doc The Cove and also Which Way Home were announced in this category, I was left a little surprised that they missed out on three exceptional titles from last year: Mugabe and the White African, Sergio and Garbage Dreams.

The Oscars have always been great at sticking to traditions; despite a growing number of humourous documentaries, it seems that they have remained constant to the idea that documentaries should be serious and not funny. It was therefore no surprise that Anvil! The Story of Anvil was neglected from this year’s category. Heartwarming, inspiring and achingly hilarious, this account of an aging metal band chasing its dreams was a brilliant example of how it is possible for a doc to make you laugh and enlighten you at the same time.

With last year’s win of James Marsh’s Man on Wire I was hopeful that the academy were moving towards titles not only of socio, environmental and political content. Here is the full factual category for 2010, Who wins? The Academy decides! Watch it live or catch it here from March 7th.

Documentary Feature:

Burma VJ
Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller

The Cove
Nominees to be determined

Food, Inc.
Robert Kenner and Elise PeaRlstein

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Judith Elrlich and Rick Goldsmith

Which Way Home
Rebecca Cammisa

Documentary Short:

China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher

The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert

Music by Prudence
Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett

Rabbit à la Berlin
Bartosz Konopka and Anna Wydra