Documentary Film as Interreligious Dialogue: A Cognitive Perspective

Research and personal experience affirm that watching a movie can change the way someone lives their life. Documentary storytelling is a multidimensional change agent, a digital media artifact that is rooted in real communities, real lives, and real stories. Because documentary is rooted in the human social world, watching it is a cognitively, psychologically, emotionally, socially, and politically complicated act. Thus, it is a potent medium for stimulating discourse, reflection, and behavioral change. This article explores the power of visual storytelling and positive media representation as a Parasocial-Relational form of interreligious dialogue and delves into practical application as it contemplates best practices for how filmmakers might harness that power, reviewing literature on the possible social, cognitive, and neurobiological impact of documentary. This interdisciplinary cognitive-sociological theory of change posits documentary film as a lever for increased interreligious competence because of its unique ability to disarm with visual storytelling and engaging characters, leading to a potentially reflexive experience of humanization and perceptual shift.