The Jury of the Documentary Competition of the 45th Moscow International Film Festival – the Russian director Julia Sergina, the Korean poet, film critic, producer Kim Jigon and a top Chinese cinematographer, Bachelor of History, Master of Literature, and member of China Film Association Hao Yun (Jury Chair) – spoke about their judging approaches at the Festival.
Hao Yun: "Each person or family has photo albums at home, and we can say that documentaries are also albums on their own, a collection of photo reports of each country. This is why documentary filmmakers have a great responsibility to collect and preserve shared memories for further generations. I'm sure that documentary filmmaking helps open people's hearts and live with open eyes".
Kim Jigon: "The first time I saw a documentary was when I was in the eighth grade, and I've loved documentaries ever since and decided to shoot documentaries. However, I thought I had to get a degree in journalism, but it turned out that to work on television you have to take lots of difficult exams, so I just took a camera and decided to shoot everything around me. And today I am honored to be a member of the jury for the MIFF competition program".
Julia Sergina: "I believe documentary filmmaking is a greatly undervalued form of filmmaking. But it is real, authentic art that reveals to directors, filmmakers, and viewers the fabric of reality in a profound way, which feature films cannot achieve. I believe in terms of its artistic impact, documentary cinema will one day overtake masterpieces of world cinema. As a jury, we must separate documentary filmmaking and pure documentary art from film activism, political, propaganda films, because documentary filmmaking is art, in the first place".
Hao Yun: "Each person or family has photo albums at home, and we can say that documentaries are also albums on their own, a collection of photo reports of each country. This is why documentary filmmakers have a great responsibility to collect and preserve shared memories for further generations. I'm sure that documentary filmmaking helps open people's hearts and live with open eyes".
Kim Jigon: "The first time I saw a documentary was when I was in the eighth grade, and I've loved documentaries ever since and decided to shoot documentaries. However, I thought I had to get a degree in journalism, but it turned out that to work on television you have to take lots of difficult exams, so I just took a camera and decided to shoot everything around me. And today I am honored to be a member of the jury for the MIFF competition program".
Julia Sergina: "I believe documentary filmmaking is a greatly undervalued form of filmmaking. But it is real, authentic art that reveals to directors, filmmakers, and viewers the fabric of reality in a profound way, which feature films cannot achieve. I believe in terms of its artistic impact, documentary cinema will one day overtake masterpieces of world cinema. As a jury, we must separate documentary filmmaking and pure documentary art from film activism, political, propaganda films, because documentary filmmaking is art, in the first place".