"Gleaners" and "waste": The post-issue/advocacy documentary

Issue/advocacy filmmaking has changed significantly in recent decades. Many modern documentary filmmakers have no problem placing themselves within their films, even when those films are not necessarily about them. A few filmmakers have gone even further, however, using the "issue" as merely a starting-off point, sometimes leaving it behind completely, a practice that has resulted in a new era, or at least a subgenre or trend, that might be called the "post-issue/advocacy" documentary. This new type of documentary is illustrated through a comparison of two recent films - Agnès Varda's The Gleaners and I and Lucy Walker's Waste Land.