Art and Experience: DA Pennebaker whose films will be reviewed in Cinema Verite next week, sent a special message to Cinema Verite.

Addressed to the audience of Cinema Verite Iran International Documentary Film Festival, the letter reads:

“We sometimes think of our films as explorations and we are the explorers. The camera is a kind of detective, looking for clues and evidence to give truth to our story, which is not ours alone, although we sometimes think of it as ours because the exploration can be difficult.  It also belongs to the characters we have filmed. When we begin we have a handshake agreement that we will show the finished film to the protagonists and if they see things we’ve got wrong we’ll try to correct them. The film should be true for the film’s characters as well as its makers. We want it to be a true story. The filmmakers rule the cameras that film the story but the story’s characters and their lives give it life.”

-with gratitude from Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker