Nonfiction Film Quotes

I love documentary because it's alive.

In 2008, A.J. Schnack recruited Thom Powers to start the Cinema Eye Honors to recognize the artistry and craft that go into making documentary films.

Like all art, nonfiction film should invite, seduce, or force us to confront the most difficult, frightening or mysterious aspects of what it means to be human.

I love making fiction films as well as nonfiction ones, and hope to keep challenging myself to make better and better work.

I just like documentaries.

I love documentaries, I like observing real people.

I think documentary filmmaking is a braver way to make films because it's real, and you're really there.

A documentary film is a great way of helping people understand because, somehow, when one is able to see the people involved, it lends a certain immediacy and understanding that is hard to get on the page.

Films can't change the society, they can simply open the space for the discussion which can lead to social change and can start new forms of social activism. I feel formally that I've scratched the surface of something very important about the nature of nonfiction film, about what we're very rarely honest about: When you film anybody, they start performing.