Writing on Film
Essays, guides, and reflections on essay film,
desktop documentary, and the practice of filmmaking.
By Matan Tal
Featured
The Essay Film: A Filmmaker's Guide to the 25 Most Asked Questions
The definitive resource on contemporary essay cinema—from Chris Marker to desktop documentaries. Covers what essay films are, how they differ from documentaries, notable filmmakers, and how to make them.
As featured on Raindance - How to Make Your First Essay Film: A Practical Guide
All Writing
The Desktop Film (Screenlife): A Filmmaker's Guide to the 25 Most Asked Questions
An exploration of screen-based documentary and fiction filmmaking. Understanding the form that documents our digital lives.
Story & Scene Writing Coaching: Filmmaker’s Method
On cinematic writing, scene craft, and finding your voice through a filmmaker's expanded toolkit of visual thinking, pacing, and montage logic.
The Sacrifice — A Real Film Treatment Example (TorinoFilmLab, 2018)
A full 15-page professional feature film treatment submitted to TorinoFilmLab — published as a free study document for filmmakers learning the format.
What Is a Desktop Film?
An accessible introduction to desktop film as a sub-genre of essay film.
What Is an Essay Film?
A documentary form rooted in subjectivity. On the cinema that thinks out loud and why it refuses fixed definitions.
The Festival Is No Longer the Gatekeeper
At a Berlinale 2026 panel, the head of Berlinale Shorts admitted she approached a YouTube filmmaker with millions of views — and he said no.
Video Essay vs. Film Essay: Understanding the Essential Difference
On positioning, platforms, and the distinction between analytical deconstruction and poetic observation. What separates critical voice from artistic expression.
Essay Film vs. Documentary: The Subjectivity Question
Why essay films throw objectivity out the window. On the filmmaker's presence, impressionism versus realism, and when to embrace personal perspective.
How to Write Voiceover for an Essay Film
From treatment to final narration: the Peter-Altenberg-ing café method, testing against your cut, and the balancing act between voice and image.
Cats, Avatars, and the Invention of Chris Marker
On discovering Chris Marker at age 14, the desktop documentary form, The Invention of Morel, and why Marker hid himself so completely. A post-screening Q&A at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2025.
On Making The Invention of Chris Marker — A Conversation at the Sorbonne
On desktop filmmaking, staging versus discovery, the role of music and The Invention of Morel in the edit, and making a film intended for 99 people. Interview at the Sorbonne, Paris.
Filmmakers Always Make Films About Themselves
A brief exchange with Mark Cousins at the EFM after the Berlinale premiere of The Story of Documentary — and why I think the filmmaker is always, at root, their own subject.
Filming Someone You Love: On Making My Sister Shira
On finishing a film fifteen years after starting it, the essay film form, and what it means to point a camera at someone you love. Q&A after the screening, Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg, May 2026.
Creative Writing in Berlin: 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions
On workshops, one-on-one mentorship, costs, and what to look for in a writing teacher. Honest answers from someone who lives and teaches here.
What Is Staging in Time?
A filmmaking concept that creates meaning through temporal montage rather than spatial staging.
What Is a Film Essayist?
Understanding the filmmaker who combines philosophy with cinema to create personal, subjective works.
Why I Work in Public: Filmbüro
On working in public at Filmbüro and the philosophy behind open filmmaking practice in Berlin.
Why Make Films
Reflections on artistic practice, purpose, and survival as an independent filmmaker in the 21st century.
Film School Mutiny
The story of how I led a revolt against conventional film education—and what it taught me about artistic independence.
Artist in Berlin
On making work in one of Europe's creative capitals. Reflections on place, practice, and the independent filmmaker's life.
Daily Routine
How I structure my days as a filmmaker and writer. On discipline, creativity, and the rhythms of artistic work.
My FilmBüro
A look inside my Berlin workspace—the physical and mental space where films are made.
Working Vocabulary
Key terms, concepts, and ideas that shape my thinking about cinema and filmmaking practice.
Filmmaker First, Writer Second: How a children's book published at age 11 predicted everything that followed
On publishing a first book at eleven, a late mentor's verdict, and the order — filmmaker first, writer second — that has held ever since.
Short Films: The Art, the Money, and the Slingshot
On why short filmmakers can't be discouraged, how shorts actually get funded, what film criticism does for a director, and the love of a form that goes straight to the jugular. Panel discussion, Interfilm Berlin, 2019.
Berlinale 2026
Notes and reflections on the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival.
Tom Troupe and Sofi (1968): The First Talking One-Man Film
On a correspondence with a veteran actor, a vanished film, and what may be the first feature-length talking one-man picture show in cinema history.
What the Reykjavik Talent Lab Gave Me
On attending the Reykjavik Talent Lab in 2018 — including one of Jonas Mekas's last public appearances — and what the festival forgot to preserve.
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