Film Synopsis: Cameraperson

What links a family’s farm in post-war Bosnia to a Nigerian maternity ward, a secret prison in Yemen, Jacques Derrida, New Yorker cartoonists and Buddhist nuns in Myanmar?

These disparate scenes from many corners of the globe are spliced together in an arresting visual memoir by the woman who filmed them all: documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson.

Johnson’s work spans a 25-year career in non-fiction filmmaking, in collaboration with filmmakers such as Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11) and Laura Poitras (CitizenFour, The Oath). She has developed a keen understanding of the ways her camera affects the people she films – but bearing witness to the aftermath of conflict, rape or genocide comes at a cost to the person behind the camera, too. Without resorting to voiceover, unfiltered by a single overarching narrative, these filmed interactions coalesce into a rich tapestry that offers a profoundly poetic meditation on intimacy, compassion and human connection.

This film was supported by the Bertha Film Fund.