Documentary on the Web between Realism and Interaction. A case study: From Zero – People Rebuilding Life after the Emergency (2009)

From Zero – People Rebuilding Life after the Emergency (2009) is an ongoingserial documentary project for the web, part of an online platform which webcast daily episodes for six months until Christmas Eve 2009 from the Italian region of Abruzzo, focussing on its recovery from the terrible earthquake it suffered in Spring 2009. In this web documentary production (also known as interactive documentary, cross-media production and docuweb) the audience moves through the material and gains access to information through participation in the digital space, thus becoming cognitively engaged whilst interacting with the interface. Using a pragmatic approach, I will investigate the relationship between film-maker, spectator and performance through From Zero interactive texts, and will show how this ‘film’ succeeds in directly involving its viewers in diegetic terms