Recipe for good documentary

Last night was our evening out as we went to see “Project Kashmir” a documentary looking at the conflict over Kashmir through the eyes of two American co-directors Senain Kheshgi and Geeta Patel. Both were raised in the U.S., but Kheshgi's family is Pakistani Muslim, while Patel's family is Indian and Hindu. So, as you can read, we started with very good intentions, but half-way into the projection, we decided to leave as we found the film so poorly made that we couldn’t get a sliver of understanding about what appears to be a devastating crisis. This brings me to the subject of film making and in that case, documentary making. To me, a director has several ingredients available: A story (that is not always very clear with a documentary), photography which is the essence of film-making, sound that always plays a huge role in creating rhythm and atmosphere, and editing that can piece the all project together and present it in some alluring ways. There was none of that in that film. It was more like a jambalaya that didn’t taste good next to the tantalizing sushi platter it should have been. While the subject of Kashmir is noble and generally ignored by most of us, the treatment was terrible and didn’t do justice to it. I’m glad we walked away...