Laps dokumentaalsarjas „Eesti lood“

Abstract

The aim of this bachelor’s thesis named “A Child in Documentary Series “Eesti lood” is to analyze how children are represented in these films as the main characters, which are their characters, which narrative authors want to tell to audience and which devices they use. Documentaries series “Eesti lood” has been running for nine seasons. These half-an-hour documentaries are produced with a low budget and topics are related with contemporary topics – outstanding people, events and actions. Anyone with necessary skills and ideas can apply for a grant financed by Estonian Public Broadcasting, Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Film Foundation to produce documentaries for this project. In the thesis three films are analyzed. Observational mode and children as main characters are common to the selected three films and distinguish them from the other 105 films in the series. The narrative that connects three different topics is the growing of children and them getting used to with rules of the adult world. Although there are some similarities between the films, the styles of authors are completely different. Triškina observes idyllic childhood with great sympathy, Rannastu follows the business of selling newspapers from distance not to disturb a regular workday. In her film, Lääne feels sorry for children who have to compete in school entry tests in an early age. Characters are analyzed via Rimmon-Kenan characterization theory that distinguishes direct and indirect representation. As films are mainly made by using observational style authors do not interfere with the action nor do they give comments on characters, most of the analysis emphasizes on indirect representation which considers characters’ action, speech, appearance and environment. The final aspect of the thesis is the analysis of the devices that authors use to keep the narrative going – it is about the discourse of the narrative. Devices are illustrated with examples and comments from authors. In addition to film analysis three interviews were held with the authors to ask about their ideas and devices. There are several ways to continue research on the current topic, for example, to analyze children in documentaries outside of the “Eesti lood” series or to choose different kinds of characters from the series (woman, man, elder people etc) or to concentrate on some other mode of documentaries (poetic, expository, reflexive, performative or interactive).