This is a term used in the discipline of film studies that does not have a scientific definition; there is a lot of debate around the term! As you know, according to Philip Lopate, an essay film.

This is a term used in the discipline of film studies that does not have a scientific definition; there is a lot of debate around the term! As you know, according to Philip Lopate, an essay film. It does NOT constitute a genre, so there is latitude for you to play a role in defining the form. It is, in general, a documentary film in the form of a written essay. This experimental essay that attempts to “follow” the lead of a documentary film in the way it is structured, written, organized and composed. An essay that takes the form of a documentary film script. Regardless of which category you choose, your project should pursue a subject that defies straightforward documentary treatment and requires “unorthodox” or “indirect” methods to accurately represent it. We’ve see the way re-enactment and collaboration with subjects like the movie (The Act of Killing) allowed Oppenheimer to construct “a documentary of the imagination” as he sought to understand the complexities of trauma. We saw the way Story turned to fragmentation in the movie The Prison in 12 Landscapes when she wanted to understand mass incarceration without filming prisons. We saw the way Agnes Varda turned her own filmmaking method into an enactment of her subject (“gleaning”). Your goal is to create something that is fully intellectually and creatively RESOLVED* and for this reason, I encourage you to err on the side of brevity. In other words, you need to be in full control of your project in its completed form, and it will take time to achieve this. As a general rule 6-8 pages for essays.