DOCUMENTARY FESTIVALS: PARIS AND OBERHAUSEN.

The article focuses on the Cinema du Reel film festival in Paris in April 1980 and the Oberhausen Film Festival in Germany. The author comments on the festival as well as the selection of films. The author poses the question on who is qualified on labeling a film as real or not. He also discusses about the vast selection of films which he thinks deserves reserved judgments on its quality and purpose. He believes that the anthropological and sociological films featured in the festival should be judged accordingly. He also comments on the purpose of prizes handed out during these festivals that as a demonstration and reinforcement of the aesthetic and ideological paradigms of the jury.