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This is indeed not only relevant to Documentary but is evident is most type of film making. The film often mirrors the experience, understanding and politics of the director.

Documentaries are a powerful and effective way of bridging the gap between worlds, breaking through to new audiences that wouldn't otherwise be engaged - in essence, not preaching to the choir.

If you acknowledge that filming is an occasion where people express things they might not otherwise express, that offers a much more insightful analysis of why documentaries - even of the fly-on-the-wall variety - are powerful.

What's great about documentary, it seems to me, is that it can be experimental filmmaking. You have a license to do a lot of diverse things under the umbrella of 'documentary.'

But I can say what interests me about documentary is the fact that you don't know how the story ends at the onset - that you are investigating, with a camera, and the story emerges as you go along.

I think the greatest thing about making a documentary is your ability to just follow the story and the subject.

I've always been interested in how to present something that relates to our reality - which is not really... I don't even know if documentary itself does as good a job. It has its own problems in trying to get at the reality of the situation.

Especially when you talk about the power of documentary filmmaking, you can't really have a slant; financially, you can't have a slant on the end goals.

The power of the story sheds a light and great perspective on well known facts. The power of cinema draws on that collective history.

Documentary people have to know that, particularly nowadays, they have to be on a mission. And part of the mission is to - is to be like good journalists: search for the truth, have an open mind, listen to as much as you can of different sides of things.