Sam Green on Live Cinema

After coining the term “live documentary,” Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Green has been proving that filmmaking is as fluid of an artistic medium as any other, and that film is perhaps best experienced rather than consumed.

With his most recent works, Sam Green walks onto a stage and narrates his films while imagery that he cues is projected behind him and an original score is performed live by a band. It’s cinematic. It’s performative. It’s a collective experience that can only be absorbed in person. And it’s not every day that The New York Times writes an article about you entitled “Sundance: The One Filmmaker Who Doesn’t Want a Distribution Deal,” in which you declare, “We’re not going to stream it on Netflix. You have to see it live.”

Through a candid discussion, Sam Green will start off this intimate workshop sharing some of his more “traditional” films, including the Academy Award-nominated documentary feature The Weather Underground, and then how and why he moved into a new live form, how his work has changed, and what its significance is in the context of documentary today.