Clifford Geertz’s cultural theory offers a useful framework for understanding the complexity of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Surname Viet, Given Name Nam. Geertz argues that culture is not a fixed set of facts but a “web of meanings” that people create and interpret. Trinh’s film adopts a similar approach by presenting Vietnamese women’s experiences not as stable truths but as layered, shifting narratives that must be read and interpreted. In many ways, the film performs the very kind

Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Minding the Gap (2018) by Bing Liu come from very different filmmaking traditions, but both blur the boundaries of documentary form. Each film combines multiple modes in ways that challenge the idea that nonfiction stories must follow a single, fixed style. While Mysterious Object at Noon uses hybridity as a playful artistic experiment, Minding the Gap uses it to explore the emotional weight behind personal

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me and Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris Is Burning focus on different communities and art forms, but both works reveal how marginalized groups use storytelling, self-expression, and collective identity to push back against social forces that try to limit their lives. Together, they show how BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices share experiences of vulnerability, creativity, and resistance in ways that support each other. One clear sim

Diversity is one of the most important and influential parts of art. When it comes to film, some of the most critically acclaimed and renowned films come from people of much different backgrounds, cultures, and countries than the average BYU Media Arts student. These backgrounds bring different perspectives, ideas, and styles that we might not have ever considered. Some of the most popular American filmmakers have gotten many of their techniques from watching foreign films. T

Nichols’s documentary modes help explain how filmmakers shape meaning and position themselves within their work. The Reflexive and Participatory Modes both involve the filmmaker’s presence, but in very different ways. The Participatory Mode focuses on direct engagement between filmmaker and subject, turning that interaction into the center of the story. The Reflexive Mode, on the other hand, steps back to examine the filmmaking process itself, asking viewers to think about ho