The School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University (JMS) is hosting a two-day colloquium with Michael Rabiger, renowned author of the documentary filmmakers' Bible Directing the Documentary, where documentary teachers and practitioners will present their work and receive comment from Rabiger, as well as show their completed films to an audience.
The second day of the colloquium, taking place from 24 to 25 February 2011, will consist of Rabiger's presentation on teaching documentary, making documentary and the current global climate regarding documentary filmmaking.
Rabiger has a long history in both feature and documentary filmaking, beginning his career in Britain in the 1950s, as an assistant film editor and going on to work on feature films at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios.
Moving to television in the early 1960s Rabiger honed his skills editing BBC documentaries and, between 1967 and 1972, he directed twenty-one documentaries in six countries for the BBC. At this time he also helped to pioneer an oral history series.
In 1972 Rabiger made the move across the Atlantic, and taught at Columbia College Chicago's fledging film college, which at that time consisted of only sixty students. Concurrently with this he wrote reviews and criticism for the New Art Examiner.
In the late 1980s the first editions of Directing the Documentary (now in its eight edition) and Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics (both Focal Press: Boston) were published, and Rabiger founded the Documentary Center at Columbia University.
During 1994-95 he was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at New York University's Department of Film and Television, returning to Chicago to publish Developing Story Ideas (Focal Press: Boston).
In 1996 he became Chair of Columbia's Film/Video Department, which now numbered 1700 students.
Rabiger retired in 2001 to write full-time, while the Columbia Film/Video Department's documentary center was renamed "The Michael Rabiger Center for Documentary" in his honour. The following year he was made an honorary professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
His seminal works on directing have all run to further editions and have been translated into Spanish, German, Chinese, and Korean. In another indication of how his work crosses cultures, Rabiger has given lectures and workshops in Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia.
Rabiger received the International Documentary Association (IDA) Preservation and Scholarship Award in 2003. At the time IDA president Michael Donaldson said of his work that "Michael Rabiger has had an incomparable influence on an entire generation of documentary students, filmmakers and fans.”
Regarding his philosophy of filmmaking education, Rabiger has said "The educator's job is to find out what passion and quest the student brings, then connect this to knowledge, experience, and influences that will help the budding director speak authentically through the screen.”
Please contact Paddy Donnelly on p.donnelly@ru.ac.za for more information.