Personal Documentary

We've watched the rise of talk shows and the "exploitation" of people driven to tell their own stories, but independents have always had a very different approach to firsthand accounts. Personal filmmaking has a rich and heady history, as evidenced by this year's Personal Documentary sidebar, and now - as several entries in this year's documentary competition make apparent - cameras are shrinking, and private moments are increasingly becoming public. This panel, which will explore some of the ethical and aesthetic considerations of people who have sometimes taken tremendous risks in sharing their lives with us, will show how integrity and creativity are shaping personal filmmaking today. The panel will be moderated by Ellen Schneider, coproducer of the Public Broadcasting series, "POV," and panelists include author and critic Pat Aufderheide, and documentarians Deborah Hoffmann, Jim Lane, Ross McElwee, and Lourdes Portillo.