Donigan Cumming: Controlled Disturbance

This three-DVD collection features 18 titles, 10 years of videography, and over six hours of material by Donigan Cumming.

"Cumming has said that it is his intention to question, "the myth of the innocent, invisible photographic witness." Borrowing from what he calls, "experimental ethnography," Cumming consciously positions himself not only as investigator, but also participant, caretaker and friend. Thus his examinations of human frailty are always tempered by a compassion that stems from his own involvement in the situations he records."

--Marcy Goldberg, Visions du Reel Festival, Nyon

"His real-life characters may be physically repellent and spiritually broken, and they represent what one does not want to face: sickness, aging, and mortality. These are not fairy tales with happily-ever-after endings, and yet at the same time they give us hope because they strive to confront reality at its strongest."

--Sally Berger, Museum of Modern Art, New York

"Taken as a whole, Controlled Disturbance: Donigan Cumming represents the admittedly challenging oeuvre of a significant artistic voice... Definitely recommended." 

--F. Swietek, Video Librarian, The Video Review Magazine for Librarians, Sept.- Oct. 2007, Vol. 22, No. 5

The collection also features optional French sub-titles, a Vision du Reel atelier with Donigan Cumming, and the following essays:

• Beyond the Absurd, Beyond Cruelty: Donigan Cumming's Staged Realities -- Sally Berger
• Donigan Cumming: Mouthing the Pangs of Speech -- Catherine Bédard
• Touching on Donigan Cumming -- Peggy Gale
• Cruelty and Compassion -- Marcy Goldberg
• Inventing the Self -- Marie-Josée Jean
• A Sense of Detail -- Yann Olivier-Wicht
• Cumming's Truth -- Jean Perret
• Difference and Indomitable Ugliness -- Nicolas Renaud