Subject: A Conversation on Ethics and Responsibilities in Documentary Filmmaking

WFTV invites you to join the conversation on the ‘subject’ within documentary filmmaking alongside filmmakers of upcoming documentary Subject, a film which focuses on the ethics and responsibility inherent in documentary filmmaking. The panel will explore moral principles that surround those who appear on screen within documentary films, and how their lives are impacted as a result of their involvement.

Subject explores the life-altering experience of sharing one’s life on screen through the participants of five acclaimed documentaries. As tens of millions of people consume documentaries in an unprecedented "golden era," the film urges audiences to consider the impact on documentary participants – the good, the bad, and the complicated.

The panel will be chaired by WFTV’s Katie Bailiff. Katie has a long-standing history producing documentary feature films and has won a BAFTA for her work. WFTV welcome Nigel Abbas, leading media lawyer specialising in Film and TV, for his professional experience on the subject.

Subject is in cinemas from 3 March. You can watch the trailer here.

Event Schedule:

17:55: Please join the webinar waiting room

18:00: Panel talk

18:45: Audience Q&A

19:00: Finish

Biographies:

Jennifer Tiexiera (Co-Director/Producer) and Camilla Hall (Co-Director/Producer) met at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 with the premieres of their films A Suitable Girl (Tiexiera) and Copwatch (Hall). They deeply connected over their filmmaking experiences and their feelings about the industry and decided to co-direct Subject. They formed Lady & Bird in 2021 alongside Rita Baghdadi.

Jennifer Tiexiera, Co-director/ Producer

Jennifer is an award-winning documentary director, producer and editor. Most recently, she directed P.S. Burn This Letter Please, a film that begins with the discovery of a box of letters that date back to the early 1950’s and reveal an untold and secret history of New York’s LGBT community. P.S. Burn This Letter Please made its debut at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the 2020 Outfest Film Festival. 

In 2019 Jennifer completed 17 Blocks, a documentary directed by Davy Rothbart and spanning over 20 years as it intimately follows the lives of a Washington, DC family deeply affected by gun violence. 17 Blocks premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival where Jennifer was awarded Best Editing in a Documentary Feature Film. In 2017, she both produced and edited the documentaries A Suitable Girl, winner of the Albert Maysles Award at Tribeca, and Waiting for Hassana, an official selection of the Sundance, SXSW and Toronto film festivals. 

Jennifer’s previous work also includes the documentary Salam Neighbor, the narrative film Road to Paloma and the 2011 SXSW Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner Dragonslayer. Some of her television credits include the documentaries Oprah Builds a Network and Biggie: The Notorious Life of B.I.G., the Emmy-nominated ESPN film The Marinovich Project, and the short film Woinshet, directed by Marisa Tomei and Lisa Leone for PBS. 

Jennifer is a proud member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, the Documentary Producers Alliance, the International Documentary Association, LatinX Directors, Women in Film, and Film Fatales. She is currently in production directing her first series for Jigsaw/HBO.

Camilla Hall, Co-director / Producer

Subject is Camilla’s third independent documentary feature film. She recently completed directing Kingdom of Dreams, a new documentary series about the golden age of luxury fashion produced by Emmy-award winning Misfits Entertainment, the filmmakers behind McQueen and Rising Phoenix,for Sky and HBO Max.

 Her first documentary feature, Copwatch, a film about police brutality, premiered in Competition at the 2017 Tribeca Festival and sold to Amazon and her second, Garenne, an investigation into a child sexual abuse scandal on a tax-haven island, was broadcast across Europe by BBC Storyville, Arte, NRK, SVT, and DRK. 

Camilla has also produced films including Sirens (Sundance 2022) and Circus of Books (Tribeca, 2021 and Netflix). She is an executive producer on Black Barbie: A Documentary, directed by Lagueria Davis, and will serve as an executive producer on Rita Baghdadi’s next film. She taught the inaugural documentary filmmaking class at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. 

Prior to filmmaking, Camilla was an award-winning journalist at the Financial Times covering Wall Street in New York, and spent five years covering the Middle East prior to that. She now works on films between London and Los Angeles.

Nigel Abbas, Head of Legal Practise

Over the last 25 years, Nigel has been at the ‘coalface’ of developments in media law and regulation, and has advised a huge number of media clients on some of the most cutting-edge content in that time across all genres: investigative, documentary, factual, fact-ent, specialist factual, features, drama including many fact-based dramas and drama-docs, as well as film and comedy.  He has advised on thousands of hours of content, creatively managing legal and regulatory risk in order to realise content producers’ editorial ambitions, pushing at the boundaries whilst keeping them out of trouble.

Some highlights over the years include: being one of two lead C4 lawyers advising on Big Brother series 1 and 2, advising numerous editorial teams and drafting all the legal and compliance guidelines for the various platforms (see Media Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/jun/11/channel4.realitytv); being lead lawyer on C4’s ground-breaking gay drama series Queer as Folk, reviewing and advising on the series, as well as successfully defending it against approximately ten thousand complaints to the then regulators the ITC and BSC; advising on a number of Peter Kosminsky’s films over the years including The Government Inspector, Britz, and The Promise; working on numerous documentaries in Channel 4’s Cutting Edge stand, numerous current affairs programmes in both Channel 4’s Dispatches and the BBC’s Panorama strands, and advising Channel 4 News over many years in particular with regard to special reports commissioned by C4 News’s Indie Growth Fund.

More recently, standout highlights include being the UK lead legal advisor on My Scientology Movie (Louis Theroux, John Dower, Red Box Films); Stephen: The Murder that Changed a Nation (James Rogan, On the Corner, BBC); McQueen (Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui, Salon Pictures); and Harvey Weinstein feature, Untouchable (Ursula Macfarlane, Lightbox).  Nigel has worked with Love Productions since its inception and is proud to have worked and advised on most of its shows over the last fifteen years, particular highlights being The Baby Borrowers, Boys and Girls Alone, Benefits Street, and, of course, The Great British Bake Off.

Nigel has vast experience of dealing with high-profile post-publication and broadcast legal and regulatory complaints particularly to Ofcom and the ASA: advising on merits, tactics, drafting submissions and pleadings, as well as advocacy.  He has also represented clients in most types of media claims before the English courts, including defamation, privacy, copyright and judicial review cases.

Katie Bailiff, Host

Before joining WFTV as CEO at the beginning of 2021, Katie was the co-owner and Creative Director at Century Films. Katie has produced award winning documentary and dramas for all the major networks.

How will the online event work?

This event will be live streamed via Zoom.us. Viewing details will be sent via your confirmation.

Attending participants will not be visible to others and will be muted throughout the session. After the talk, there will be an opportunity for audience members to ask their questions to the panel by using the Q&A feature.

This event is for existing WFTV members only.

If you are not a member and would like to join, membership costs just £100 + VAT/yr , please click here or email admin@wftv.org.uk

At WFTV we’re really keen to ensure that all our events are accessible for everyone. So if you have any particular access needs, please can you let us know before an event and we will do our best to accommodate you. We would be grateful if you can give us as much notice as possible – please contact admin@wftv.org.uk