Marcel Lozinski: Why Make Docs?

One of the many highlights of an epic True/False Film Festival this year was the focus on Polish documentary makers of the last 30 years. An accompanying monograph about their work by curator Ela Bittencourt included this statement by Marcel Lozinski on why he makes documentaries:

I’m a Documentary Maker…

… because something is happening around and inside me, and I try to connect these two realities,

… because I like to ask about the nature of happiness, fear, pain and hope,

… because I want to understand ‘what’s what’,

… because I don’t believe in objective registering of reality,

… because I trust chance more than my own imagination,

… because I’m curious if others feel as I do,

… because it’s my chosen profession since I gave up engineering,

… because I like to ‘thicken’ reality, but never to distort it,

… because I must make a living,

… because I’m trying to communicate with others,

… because the truth in nonfiction films can be shocking,

… because I don’t like substitutes for reality,

… because I’m often repulsed by the artificiality fiction films,

… because I abhor intolerance, stupidity, pretence,

… because I want to immortalize a fraction of my reality,

… because I like to listen and to watch people, and I want others to enjoy it,

… because I’m annoyed by so many things,

… because I don’t see myself as an artist. but I try to be a good craftsman,

… because I like to poke holes in things that seem whole,

… because I hold certain values sacred,

… because I want to know the thoughts of a stranger who looks out the window, as I watch him,

… because I liked to take apart watches when I was a kid, to see how their mechanisms worked.

And this is why I make nonfiction films.