Filmmaking Seminar

In this edition of Doclisboa’s Filmmaking Seminar, the UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art (UNDO) returns as a partner, co-designing a five-day programme that offers participants a unique opportunity to engage deeply with a dynamic collection of films and take part in structured, thought-provoking discussions inspired by the work.

Participants will attend festival screenings alongside the public and then have exclusive sessions with the filmmakers. Each day’s seminar centers on a film from the festival program and will be hosted by Christopher Allen and Jenny Miller, from UNDO, along with featured filmmakers in attendance. These encounters will provide first-hand insights into the artistic practices of acclaimed documentary filmmakers, each recognized for a distinctive body of work and bold formal experimentation.

This is a space for deep immersion, reflection, and exchange. Participants will work in small breakout groups and collective discussions, sharing their ideas, epiphanies, experiences, and perspectives. Over the course of the seminar, a temporary but vibrant community will take shape—united by curiosity and a commitment to questioning and expanding how we think about and are connected through cinema.

The seminar will be conducted in English and led by Christopher Allen and Jenny Miller of UNDO.

Moderators & participating filmmakers

Jenny Miller

Co-artistic director of UNDO, which she joined in 2016 after learning with a variety of arts spaces and nonprofits. Has produced 600+ screenings, workshops, and public programmes, supporting initiatives like artist development labs, publications, an online membership platform, and the UNDO Fellowship. Has guest lectured at Columbia University and Bard College, and served on juries. Earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in cinema studies and English.

Christopher Allen

Founder of UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, which produces events, workshops, documentary projects, collaborative studios, summer labs for feature projects in pre-production, the UNDO Fellowship, publications and an on-line membership platform. The projects he has initiated, including Living Los Sures, Documenting Mythologies, Capitol of Punk and Yellow Arrow, have united hundreds of artists, documentarians and communities.

Kevin B Lee

Filmmaker and educator who has produced over 360 video essays on film and media, his work has screened at MoMA, IFFR, and on platforms like The New York Times and Mubi.
His award-winning Transformers: The Premake pioneered the “desktop documentary” format. In 2016 the Austrian Filmmuseum programmed a retrospective of his video essays. He was 2017 Artist in Residence at the Harun Farocki Institut and is Locarno Film Festival Professor at USI.

Ross Mcelwee

American documentary filmmaker known for blending autobiography, cultural observation, and humor. His breakthrough film Sherman’s March won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 1986. His documentaries have premiered at Berlin, Cannes, and Venice (three times). He has received honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Pennebaker Award. In 2005, MoMA presented a full retrospective of his work, later shown worldwide.

Trương Minh Quý

Born in Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam, his work draws on Vietnam’s landscapes, history and childhood memories blending documentary and fiction. A Le Fresnoy graduate (2021),his films have been selected for film festivals such as Cannes, Berlinale, Locarno, New York, Clermont-Ferrand, IFFR, Busan and Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin. He won the main Art prize at VideoBrasil (2017). His latest film, Việt and Nam (2024), was selected for Cannes – Un Certain Regard.

Isabel Pagliai

Born in 1988, she lives and works in Paris where she studied literature, art history and cinema at university in Paris as well as at Le Fresnoy. Her cinematographic work combines a fictional approach with documentary filming. Her films have been screened at international festivals such as New Directors/New Films, Cinéma du Réel, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Viennale, which devoted a first monograph to her in 2020.