In 2002 documentary filmmaker Jill Godmilow first called for the destruction of documentary “as we know it.” The target of her attack was the classical realist documentary and its presumptions about transparent truth-telling. Twenty years later, documentary film “as we know it” survives and even flourishes. Perhaps Godmilow didn’t go far enough. This course seeks to decolonize the documentary impulse, forms, discourses, and practices. It asks who has made documentaries, about what, and for whom. Through viewing, thinking about, writing about, discussing, and possibly making nonfiction films that go against the grain of conventional documentary, we will aspire toward the vision of a decolonial documentary present and future that counters and critiques the master narrative of documentary history with its implicit colonial extractive logic. Filmmakers including Raoul Peck, Arthur Jafa, Thirza Cuthand, Sky Hopinka, Susana de Souza Diaz, Garrett Bradley, Ja’Tovia Gary, Yance Ford, Rithy Panh and more will form the ground of our study.