Can documentaries do research?

One of the films in DOK Leipzig 2025 calls for a reflection on research. I have in mind Elephants Squirrels (2025) by Swiss director Gregor Brändli.

Brändli’s film tells the story of the Sri Lankan artist Deneth Piumakshi Veda Arachchige’s
attempt to bring back a collection of ancestral remains and cultural objects of the Wanniyala-Aetto – an indigenous Sri Lankan community. The objects had been taken from Sri Lanka more than a hundred years before, and had been kept in the Basel Historical Museum in Switzerland. Deneth Piumakshi Veda Arachchige – and the film team- take us to the museum, and with the aid of its staff, we are invited to learn about a few of them and watch them as they are brought out from well-protected shelves.

She then decides to follow in the footsteps of Swiss explorers Paul and Fritz Sarasin, who brought the objects to Switzerland. She visits Uru Warige Wannila Aththo, today’s leader of the Wanniyala-Aetto community. He helps her first by explaining the importance of the objects in the Sri Lankan community, then by suggesting how she can go about it. Later, when the museum agrees to return some of the objects, he travels to Basel to take part in the ceremony.

This film raises an interesting meta-question: which method is most useful to learn about the world and everything that exists in it? Academic researchers will argue that their mode of research is by far more effective and reliable than any other investigation method. And there is a lot of truth in that. Academic research encompasses a strict and thoroughly worked-out methodology. A filmmaker’s work, however, may also present a viable method of in-depth digging into many topics. It is not our intention to reduce the impact of academic research. Instead, we seek to highlight the
investigative potential in filmmaking. Here: in documentaries.

The academic researcher seeks knowledge of a type that we often think of as evident (sometimes as
evident as possible, sometimes less evident – depending on the methodology). The filmmaker is rarely interested in evidence. They will usually seek to tell stories, and often to enlighten us on a more general level. This position is useful for diving deep into many issues. The filmmakers can choose their own methodology.

A perfectly good example of the difference can be identified by looking at how Elephants & Squirrels include Uru Warige Wannila Aththo, Wanniyala-Aettos leader. He is very present throughout the film. By his hair and beard. By his shirtless clothing. By his words. He gives his thoughts on the very topic of the film: restituting objects from a Western museum back to their makers. One must also note his way of speaking: if there is one humanist in this film, it is Uru Warige Wannila Aththo. In a research report or an article in an academic journal, there is a risk that the leader of the Wanniyala-Aetto community would be more or less invisible. He would perhaps be cited. But we would not meet him.

Another important person in the film is the artist Deneth Piumakshi Veda Arachchige, who leads the whole investigation. She is our guide, and she helps us get the different parts of the story together. Her humanity is also vital to the film’s narrative.

The film shows a special kind of work – many would maybe call it «research» – but one that
does not take away vital knowledge. A film may interrogate a theme differently than an academic researcher; it may reach a greater and more diversified public than those who read an academic article; it may choose other methods than those in the academic toolbox, and it may offer a broader picture of its topic. A film will often have a different purpose than academic research. It will not always give precise answers to well-formulated questions. Rather, it will pose questions and widen our curiosity. At best, the documentary and the academic research can therefore contribute in different ways to expand our horizons.

Elephants & Squirrels tells the story of a limited number of objects in a single museum in one country. But the fact that many objects from the global South are kept in Western museums makes the film important as a story of how the Western world in the present-day should be open to re-thinking questions of colonization and dominance.

By Jan Storø
Edited by Anne-Christine Loranger
Copyright FIPRESCI