Please join We Are Doc Women for this screening of Subject.

Afterwards there will be a Q&A with directors Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexiera and producer and interviewee Margie Ratliff.

We would like to invite all attendees to join us for networking drinks in The Garden bar from 7pm.

Synopsis:

Subject explores the life-altering experience of sharing one’s life on screen through key participants of acclaimed documentaries The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, The Wolfpack, Capturing the Friedmans, and The Square. These erstwhile documentary “stars” reveal the highs and lows of their experiences as well as the everyday realities of having their lives put under a microscope. Also featuring commentary from such influential names in the doc world as Kirsten Johnson, Sam Pollard, Thom Powers and Sonya Childress, the film unpacks vital issues around the ethics and responsibility inherent in documentary filmmaking. As tens of millions of people consume documentaries in an unprecedented "golden era," Subject urges audiences to consider the often profound impact on their participants.

WADW Presents is a series of documentary screenings with Q&As with the women creatives behind the camera. It comes from the team behind We Are Doc Women, a group that was founded in 2017 to provide peer support for women directors working in factual television in the UK. We have grown to become a collective of directors, producers, assistant producers and executive producers advocating for equal opportunities, greater support and fair recognition within our industry.

Biographies:

Subject is Camilla Hall’s third independent documentary feature film. She recently completed directing Kingdom of Dreams, a new documentary series about the golden age of luxury fashion produced by Emmy-award winning Misfits Entertainment, the filmmakers behind McQueen and Rising Phoenix, for Sky and HBO Max. Her first documentary feature, Copwatch, a film about police brutality, premiered in Competition at the 2017 Tribeca Festival and sold to Amazon and her second, Garenne, an investigation into a child sexual abuse scandal on a tax-haven island, was broadcast across Europe by BBC Storyville, Arte, NRK, SVT, and DRK.

Margie Ratliff is a producer of Subject and was a participant in The Staircase, a Netflix true-crime series released in 2018 that documented her father’s legal battle after he was accused and convicted of the murder of her mother. A shorter version of the series, which aired in 2004, was re-released on Netflix with three new episodes. Margie’s life has moved far beyond the series. She is now an independent Producer/Director of documentary films, a marathon runner and a passionate world traveler.

Jennifer Tiexiera is an award-winning documentary director, producer and editor. Most recently, she directed P.S. Burn This Letter Please, a film that begins with the discovery of a box of letters that date back to the early 1950’s and reveal an untold and secret history of New York’s LGBT community. P.S. Burn This Letter Please made its debut at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the 2020 Outfest Film Festival. In 2019 Jennifer completed 17 Blocks, a documentary directed by Davy Rothbart and spanning over 20 years as it intimately follows the lives of a Washington, DC family deeply affected by gun violence. She is currently in production directing her first series for Jigsaw/HBO.  

Select press:

“A documentary dork’s delight. The starting point for a conversation about depiction, exploitation and documentary ethics. Interesting and entertaining. I hope Subject finds a home where many people can watch it, because this is a good start. I want more.”

– Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter

“[An] insightful ethical exploration. It’s amazing the amount of content ‘Subject’ packs into a tight 90-minute package… There’s a fluidity and grace to how Hall and Tiexiera dissect everything… Hall and Tiexiera create something incredibly special. A great place to start for getting at the heart of why audiences love the truth of documentary, and what that truth really means.” (B+)

– Kristen Lopez, IndieWire

“Should be required viewing.”

– Addie Morfoot, Variety

“Fantastic, probing, and compassionate.”

– Gary Kramer, Salon

“The most inspired movie on the [festival] docket… We should be shocked that no one’s broached this territory before… Going deep into modern doc history… the movie opens a hefty can of modern media worms, right in the middle of the new Golden Age of nonfiction filmmaking.”

– Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice

“A thoughtful interrogation of what documentary is, and where it’s going.”

– Jason Bailey, Vulture