To approach the theme of blindness is, by definition, a major challenge when it comes to portraying it in a movie. Cinema is, after all, the art where the sight is the prominent and necessary sense for a complete experience.
Fortunately, there are filmmakers who have managed to come up with respectful and genuine views on this condition. With their films, they help to sensitize us and open us to a vast sensory world that we are unaware of.
Guidedoc presents the following ten documentaries on blindness for standing out in creative ways to give an image to the world of those who do not see.
The following ten documentaries on blindness make up a diverse number of perspectives on this condition. One example of this diversity is in the different reasons why the protagonists of these stories cannot see, which is not only due to hereditary or degenerative causes.
Just as happened to artist Hugues Montalembert in the documentary "Black Sun", anyone with a sense of sight could be at the mercy of losing it in an unfortunate accident when they least expect it.
What is most interesting about the titles on this list are the creative ways our characters manage to cope with or understand this limitation. Whether with an intellectual, scientific, artistic, or everyday approach, each of these documentaries leaves the door open to a world rich in images and sounds.
Antoine
The Eyes of Me
Notes On Blindness
Herman Slobbe Blind Kind II Johan van der Keuken
In the first minutes of this documentary, the filmmaker Manuel von Sturler, the protagonist of the film, receives the news that his sense of sight is weakening irremediably.
With the knowledge that blindness awaits him around the corner, he decides to leave his everyday spaces to venture on a revealing adventure to other lands, in search of different notions about vision and the experience of perceiving reality through our sight.
You can watch this film now on Guidedoc
In 1978, the renowned painter and filmmaker Hugues Montalembert was attacked by surprise while walking the streets of New York, an event that left him abruptly blind. Black Sun is a film conceived to give shape to a perceptive state devoid of concrete figures.
Montalembert himself serves as a narrator in the first person to guide us in this trance of diffuse figures and beautiful flashes, psychedelic images that would only be possible to appreciate in his blindness.
Montalembert tells us everything he felt after losing his sight and what he did to be able to fend for himself in the vortex of New York.
During the film, we accompany him as he travels to Bali, where he arrives by plane without the assistance of another person to write a book about his life.
You can watch this film now on Guidedoc
Carlos is a blind man in charge of a team of food tasters in a sensory analysis laboratory. So far, his disability has not been an obstacle, quite the contrary. But this will change abruptly when new members join the group he leads.
Through an observational approach, filmmaker Juan Manuel Repetto builds a portrait of a man who must overcome the everyday obstacles we all live with, but this time enhanced by the condition of blindness.
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Through the impressive artistic talent of octogenarian Venezuelan photographer Sonia Soberats, this documentary takes us into an impressive universe of light and shadow.
Sonia became blind after the death of her only two children but found in blind photography her passion for life.
In her own voice, we hear her experiences and philosophy of life, as we watch her work, with exclusive access, in her fascinating photographic mise-en-scènes.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
How would you feel if somebody told you that color is not an image, but only a word?
The premise that blindness opens up surprising perspectives unfolds in this short documentary film where seven blind people from various parts of the world tell us how they conceive the world around them.
Philosophical, introspective, breathtaking, this film is like an arrow to the heart of anyone who watches it.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
To document the life of a five-year-old blind boy in Montreal, Canada, filmmaker Laura Bari turns to the detective game.
Antoine, the protagonist, speaks to us in an intimate voice and tells us how he intends to solve his case: he will use this microphone to catch the sounds around him, as if they were the clues to a riddle.
Through this ingenious proposal, a beautiful feature-length documentary about the magic of childhood in blindness is born.
Could you imagine yourself trying to remember the last thing you saw before you lost your sense of sight?
Is it possible to express how it feels to be a young blind person through rap music? Does a blind person have to show any special talent to make the label of disability disappear?
Illustrated with colorful animations, this independently made documentary shows how a group of young Americans live with blindness in the most fertile time of their lives.
In this inspiring documentary filmed in Argentina, several blind people describe what their inner world is like.
Can they conceive images? How does their imagination muscle work? Children, youth and adults are interviewed and filmed in action: Painting, reading in Braille, taking a cab.
Through a sensorial proposal, in some parts of the film, there are passages where the every day life is mixed with the psychedelic, moments where sounds and vibrations are the main link with the outside world.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
When the British neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks heard some audiotapes published in 1990, he discovered the brightest essay on blindness.
The tapes belong to John Hull, a writer and theologian who lost his blindness unexpectedly in 1983 and decided to leave a sound testimony of his experience.
Notes On Blindness retrieves Hull's recordings to continue developing the theme of blindness through memories, dreams and the human worldview.
Prolific and award-winning filmmaker Van Der Keuken made this iconic short film about a blind boy with particular daring.
The protagonist is Herman Slobbe, an eloquent Dutch boy gifted with a particular gift for hearing, reproducing, and composing the sounds of the world around him.
Over the course of two months, Herman and Van Der Keuken share their daily lives together in a kind of short life diary. During those days, they have existentialist conversations that are immortalized in the film's soundtrack.
Definitely a must-see on this list.
Watch more other great documentaries online now on Guidedoc