Pleased to Announce

Keith Wilson and his live documentary performance “Pleased to Announce” was featured in a Documentary Magazine interview with Academy Award winning editor Maya Daisy Hawke  https://www.documentary.org/online-feature/why-am-i-doing-keith-wilson-talks-about-his-live-cinema-performance-awards-season

Description: “How does the transformative power of documentary film become diminished by the absurd notion that it can somehow be won or lost?” That is how film director and producer Keith Wilson tees up his equally playful and cutting live cinema performance, “Pleased to Announce.” First performed at CPH:DOX (with encore performances at Cannes Docs, DC/DOX, and Camden), Wilson’s piece is part memoir of his time on the awards campaign as producer of Reid Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There” (2022) and part critique of the for-your-consideration cottage industry that’s seemingly swallowed up the documentary field in the last few years. Armed with just his laptop and a self-deprecating sense of humor, Wilson skewers the way the rush to earn accolades has skewed the way many documentary filmmakers (himself included) see and value their work. In this conversation with fellow live cinema practitioner Maya Daisy Hawke (editor of Oscar-winning Navalny), Wilson talks about why this critique is best-suited for a live performance, why he embraces failure in this very form, and what conversations he hopes to incite in documentary spaces.