Based on work the author has carried out with survivor groups in Northern Ireland and South Africa, "Recording Memories from Political Violence" draws on written and audiovisual texts to describe and analyze the use of documentary filmmaking in recording experiences of political conflict. A variety of issues relevant to the genre are addressed at length, including the importance of ethics in the collaboration between the filmmaker and the participant and the effect of location on the accounts of participants. Cahal McLaughlin draws on the diverse fields of film and cultural studies, as well as nearly twenty years of production experience, in this informed and instructive contribution to documentary filmmaking and post-conflict studies.

The new wave of documentaries that prominently feature their filmmakers, such as the works of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, have attracted fresh, new audiences to the form--but they have also drawn criticism that documentaries now promote entertainment at the expense of truth. "Truth or Dare" examines the clash between the authenticity claimed by documentaries and their association with imagination and experimental contemporary art. An experienced group of practitioners, artists, and theorists here question this binary, and the idea of documentary itself, in a cross-disciplinary volume that will force us to reconsider how competing interests shape filmmaking.

Truth, Dare or Promise: Art and Documentary Revisited reflects on the ways that artists and filmmakers address the innovations and limitations of producing and exhibiting their work. Ranging from community collaboration to individual interpretation, and from gallery installation to cinematic screening, this book explores the differences and overlaps between definitions and methodologies. With an international reach, including contributors who are both practitioners and theorists, this book maps out developments in art and documentary, covering themes that include explorations of personal experience and representations of the past, while examining interactive galleries and the cinematic space.