Les Rencontres
Dora Maar

We are pleased to present a particularly exciting programme of discussions for this year’s Rencontres Dora Maar, which will take place at the Hôtel de Tingry on 30 and 31 July, and at the Salle des Fêtes on 1 August. Full details can be found below. Please note that access to the Rencontres is free of charge, but places are limited and must be reserved when purchasing your Festival ticket(s).

THURSDAY 30th JULY

BEYOND BIOGRAPHY: Who Gets to Tell an Artist’s Story?

While biographical documentaries are frequently framed as authoritative narratives, each cinematic portrait is the result of deliberate choices. Filmmakers must navigate whose perspectives are prioritised, which recollections are deemed reliable, and how to address the gaps where evidence is missing or the truth remains elusive. Whether working through active collaboration, archival research or hybrid techniques, the process involves a constant negotiation between objective fact and creative interpretation.

This conversation brings together filmmakers who employ diverse approaches to bringing cultural figures to the screen. Exploring forms that range from intimate shared portraits to posthumous investigations, the panel will discuss how cinema constructs, challenges and transforms the narratives surrounding creative lives.

Using a range of cinematic examples, including Kevin Macdonald’s One to One: John & Yoko, Ian Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s Marianne Faithfull portrait Broken English, and Agnès Varda’s Jane B. par Agnès V., participants will analyse the complexities of life-writing in film. Varda’s work provides a compelling case study: made when Jane Birkin was thirty and born of a close bond between filmmaker and subject, it invites a conversation about intimacy, collaboration and the construction of an artistic identity in real time.

The panel will reflect on the interplay of memory, archive and reconstruction, the participation of subjects in their own storytelling, and the creative and ethical dilemmas inherent in the attempt to distil the essence of a unique creative voice on screen.

Panelists: Kevin Macdonald, Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard
Moderators: Sophie Rosemont & Mark Kermode

FRIDAY 31st JULY

DOCUMENTING MUSICIANS: The Rolling Stones and the Evolution of the Music Documentary

Few musicians have been filmed, photographed and documented as extensively as The Rolling Stones. Across more than six decades, filmmakers have returned repeatedly to the band, capturing performances, recording sessions, creative partnerships, controversy and life on the road. Together, these films provide a unique opportunity to examine how documentary cinema records not only artists, but the passage of time itself.

Using The Rolling Stones as a case study, this discussion will explore the evolution of the music documentary, from Albert and David Maysles’ groundbreaking Gimme Shelter — a landmark of Direct Cinema that transformed the possibilities of observational filmmaking — to the controversial Cocksucker Blues and beyond. Through these films, audiences can trace changing approaches to access, authorship, storytelling and the representation of musicians on screen.

The conversation will be led by Emmy Award-winning editor and director Susan Steinberg, who worked on both Gimme Shelter and Cocksucker Blues before going on to edit and direct numerous films devoted to music and musicians, including Paul Simon: Born at the Right Time. Drawing on her exceptional experience, she will reflect on the challenges of documenting artists over time: the relationship between filmmaker and subject, the tension between performance and private life, and the ways in which films help shape musical legacy.

The discussion will also consider why music documentaries continue to hold such enduring appeal. At once intimate portraits, historical documents and records of performance, these films allow audiences to witness creativity in motion — and to see how artists, audiences and filmmakers all change over time.

Panelists: Susan Steinberg
Moderators: Sophie Rosemont & Mark Kermode

SATURDAY 1st AUGUST

FINDING THE MUSIC: The Creative Dialogue Between Director, Editor and Composer

Music plays a unique role in documentary filmmaking. It can shape rhythm, guide emotion, create tension and illuminate meaning, often becoming an essential part of the storytelling process. Yet unlike fiction filmmaking, where music is frequently conceived alongside the script, documentary scores emerge in response to real lives, archival materials and stories discovered during the editing process.

This discussion brings together composer Alexei Aigui and editor Alexandra Strauss, long-time collaborators of filmmaker Raoul Peck, whose acclaimed films include I Am Not Your Negro, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found and Orwell: 2+2=5. Through a selection of film extracts, they will explore how music is conceived, developed and integrated into documentary filmmaking, and how the relationship between composer, editor and director shapes the emotional and narrative architecture of a film.

Together they will discuss the practical and creative process of collaboration: when music enters the edit, how themes and motifs emerge, and the delicate balance between image, sound and silence. The conversation will offer audiences a rare insight into one of the most powerful yet often unseen elements of cinematic storytelling.

Panelists: Alexei Aigui, Alexandra Strauss
Moderators: Mark Kermode