documentary

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documentary Factual film. The term was first applied to Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1921), a first-hand account of life among the Inuit. Documentaries soon rivalled newspapers and became a major means of television news, current affairs and science presentation. Other ground-breaking documentaries include D. A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back (1967) and Marcel Ophüls' A Sense of Loss (1972).

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