Cooperation or conflict? Merging documentary filmmaking and oral history practices in The Eastside Project

Abstract

Rigorous formal oral history practices have great academic and cultural value but tend to produce recordings rather than stories. Conversely, ‘creative documentary’ practices have reinvigorated traditional nonfiction film production but are often arbitrary in viewpoint and emphasis. Can using an open archive reconcile and re-energise these two practices? In 2022, we began filming video interviews for a new digital oral history archive at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. In this paper, we address essential conflicts between traditional oral history methodology and documentary filmmaking and how these practices can complement each other.

Keywords

• segregation
• participatory
• filmmaking
• race
• black