The Imposter Syndrome + Conversation with Doc Filmmaker, Lourdes Portillo
Do you consider yourself a documentary filmmaker or is that a term that you are hesitant to give yourself?
Is there something that is holding you back from your first documentary film?
Perhaps what’s keeping you from being a doc filmmaker, or making your doc film, or living your doc life, is something called imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome is a concept that basically describes the inability of an individual to internalize one’s accomplishments as well as having a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud. And I’m convinced that so many of us doc filmmakers experience this at some point in time in our own doc lives. Which is what we’ll take a look at in our opening segment of today’s podcast.
Topics Discussed
- Definition of imposter syndrome and how it applies to us #doclifers
- Why you are already a filmmaker qualified to make a documentary
- How you can overcome the fear that you are under-qualified to make your doc film
Podcast Conversation
In our shared conversation, I sat down with Academy Award and Emmy Award-nominated doc filmmaker, Lourdes Portillo. On the eve of her being awarded the prestigious International Documentary Association (IDA)’s Career Achievement Award, we have a frank and open conversation about the state of documentary: what it has meant for her in her life as well as what it might mean for future doc filmmakers and..
- how she became an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker with her first film without ever having any prior filmmaking experience
- how aspiring filmmakers today make the mistake of concentrating on all of the shiny and latest camera gear and forget the most important element to a documentary: story
- advice for writing your first grants for your first projects
- what it means to be awarded an IDA Career Achievement Award
Film Trailer
Trailer for Lourdes Portillo’s brilliant personal documentary The Devil Never Sleeps (as discussed in the episode)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA_jAVoY2qY
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