DocWest

DocWest is the name of the centre for production and research of documentary film at The University of Westminster, London. Established in 2009, it hosts screenings, masterclasses, and conferences involving documentary practitioners.

DocWest is involved in a wide array of activities, including teaching, film production and academic research. The primary objective of these efforts centers on the examination of documentary discourse, encompassing its historical development and its intricate interrelations with art and politics. The organization prioritizes the study areas of Visual Anthropology and Human Rights, arts documentary, and the documentary archive. Additionally, DocWest broadens its production and research efforts to investigate other areas within the domain of documentary study. This encompasses exploring emerging domains such as interactive documentaries and web-based documentaries.

DocWest has created a doctoral program that offers both theoretical and practice-based degrees. These degrees cover a wide range of contexts and draw from various documentary traditions.

Recent projects include the film The Act of Killing and Arts on Film Archive and the book Killer Images published by Columbia University Press. The most recent project the film The Act of Killing, was part of a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) research project, directed by Prof Joram ten Brink, the director of DocWest and Joshua Oppenheimer the director of the film.

Errol Morris' reaction to the film was “Every now and then a non-fiction film comes along that is unlike anything else I have seen: Buñuel’s LAND WITHOUT BREAD, Werner Herzog’s FATA MORGANA, Hara’s THE EMPEROR’S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON. Well, it’s happened again. Here Joshua Oppenheimer invites unrepentant Indonesian death squad leaders to make fiction films re-enacting their violent histories. Their cinematic dreams dissolve into nightmares and then into bitter reality. Like all great documentaries, THE ACT OF KILLING demands another way of looking at reality. It is like a hall of mirrors––the so-called mise-en-abyme––where real people become characters in a movie and then jump back into reality again. And it asks the central question: what is real? Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in a Paris Review interview, wrote about reading Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” for the first time, “I didn’t know you were allowed to do that.” I have the same feeling with this extraordinary film,” and Werner Herzog reacted “THE ACT OF KILLING invents a new form of cinematic surrealism.”