從前，想要去拍video（錄像），先需要有一部攝影機，還有菲林或錄影帶，然後再把拍好的素材送去沖印、過片或傳輸到電腦，錄像才得以面世。
到了現在，我們口袋裡的手提電話或家裡的照相機，已經可拍攝全高清的錄像，隨手可得的照片已再不能滿足大家，錄像才是生活中、社交網絡中的新潮流。
然而，當你的朋友、鄰居、家人或自己變成錄像時，這些看似平凡的日常紀錄，除了成為你的私人錄像回憶，還變成了紀錄社會的一部分。
首屆澳門國際紀錄片電影展以「私紀錄」為主題，邀請世界各地的「私人」故事，從細微出發，用「我」的視角去看這個世界。
智利紀錄片導演Patricio Guzman 說過，「一個沒有紀錄片的國家，就像一個缺了家庭相冊的家庭」(A country without documentary films is like a family without a photo album)。我們又可否倒過來想，是次影展選映的這些「私」紀錄片，若沒有被拍攝被觀看，我們又該怎樣去理解身邊的世界？
我們的時代，需要紀錄片，好像需要一個窗口一樣。
Taking videos used to take more efforts. First, you would need a video-camera, a roll of film or a video tape. Filmed materials would then have to be printed, scanned and transferred to a computer and finally, voilà, now you made a video!
Nowadays, you can make footages of high resolution with your pocket-size mobile phones or compact cameras. Photography has become available in the blink of an eye, and therefore it struggles to satisfy our craving for visual reality. Instead, videography has taken the lead in our daily life and on social media channels.
Now, when you take footages of your friends, neighbours, family and even yourself in your everyday life, you have not only weaved a picture of your personal memories, but at the same time also documented a part of your society.
The theme of the First Macao International Documentary Film Festival is ‘doMEmentary’ – combine ‘documentary’ and ‘me’. These intimate stories from various places and countries open new horizons for us to see the world. Despite their differences in form and content, what these stories have in common is the perspective of the personal eye/“I”.
As Chilean documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzman once commented on the importance of documentary, “A country without documentary films is like a family without a photo album.” We hope you will join us at this exciting premiere film festival and rethink how these intimate documentations have the power to transform our way of seeing the world.
Documentary, like a window, is indispensable to the era we live in.
English translation credit: Anna Cheong; Edited by Lin Yiping