New Visions, Old Crises

Editor-in-Chief B. Ruby Rich reports on a new partnership between FQ and the Ford Foundation. Film Quarterly, in partnership with the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms initiative, hereby launches a new effort focused on the future of documentary and its capacity to address issues of social justice, in the United States and globally, on screens of all sorts and sizes. The effort will also encompass the assessment of dramatic films aimed at transformation, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world. JustFilms has already had a powerful impact on the world through its support of filmmakers and filmmaking institutions. With this grant, Ford brings FQ into the conversation. Criticism and analysis are crucial to the development of a medium. This recognition by the Ford Foundation of the critical importance of thinking about representation can encourage writers to think big, to consider documentary strategies with renewed vigor, and to broaden the field for documentary analysis as well as reporting. FQ will be better equipped to report on the field of documentary as well as to play a bigger role in helping to shape it—through publication and participation.