Kirsten Johnson’s “Cameraperson” has been acquired by Janus Films after a successful run on the festival circuit. The distributor picked up all North American rights to the documentary, which made its World Premiere at Sundance earlier this year.
“Cameraperson” is a curated collection of extraordinary footage that Johnson has assembled over her 20 year career in the industry, working primarily as a cinematographer. Viewers are transported to international locations as varied as a remote village, war zone, and an abortion clinic. “Cameraperson’s” most harrowing scene takes place in an underfunded, understaffed Nigerian hospital where a newborn baby struggles to survive. Johnson’s credits include “Trapped,” “CITIZENFOUR,” “The Hunting Ground,” and “This Film Is Not Yet Rated.” The doc is unnarrated, and draws from both Johnson’s professional life and personal life. Her mother, who is suffering with Alzheimer's Disease, features prominently in “Cameraperson.”
In an interview with Indiewire, Johnson said that part of her motivation to make the film “was to just acknowledge how much is going on behind the image that you see on the screen and how it’s the recording of that present moment but there’s a lot behind it. And there will be a lot that happens to that image moving forward that no one completely understands or controls. So there’s some magic in that.”
“‘Cameraperson’ will change the way you see documentaries forever,” commented Peter Becker of Janus Films. “Quietly, persistently, Kirsten Johnson reveals that even in the most objective-seeming footage there is a hidden life being lived behind the camera, an emotional story that ranges from delight to horror, one that has never been told with such elegance and poignancy. Juxtaposing moments that have transfixed her since the moment she first witnessed them, Johnson has made a riveting film that will stand the test of time.”
He continued, “I feel sure that years from now we will look back on ‘Cameraperson’ as a classic, essential viewing for anyone interested in the way truth gets told on film.”
Johnson stated, “One of the reveals of making ‘Cameraperson’ is that each filmed moment is actually an on-going series of relationships. This extends into each time a film is watched by another person in a different place at a new moment in history.”
