Looking for the Essay: A Journey of Rediscovery Fátima CHINITA |
Collective Subjectivity in the Essay Film Mieke BAL |
Drifting with Cousins: Mark Cousins and the Psychogeographical Essay Film Abstract: Kyle BARRETT Abstract: This article discusses a selection of works by filmmaker Mark Cousins, arguably an under-examined figure with regard to film studies. It is contended that Cousins has fashioned a distinctive approach to the essay film. Adopting a “psychogeographical” perspective, this article will analyse Wh... Read More Keywords: Essay film, psychogeography, dérive, creative practice |
Memory of Berlin: An Accidental Autoethnography Mark READMAN Abstract: Although the term autobiography features regularly in the essay film literature, autoethnography appears less so. John Burgan made Memory of Berlin (1998) in his thirties, to tell the story of how he was “triggered” by the fall of the Wall in 1989 to search for his birth mother... Read More Keywords: John Burgan, Memory of Berlin, autoethnography, essay film, research, autobiography |
The Essay Film as an Archival Practice for Self-representation Vladimir ROSAS-SALAZAR Abstract: The essay film as a form of expression allows filmmakers to delve into soul searching to elaborate autobiographical representations using experimental devices without the constraints of conventional narrative structures. By placing themselves in the foreground, experimental filmmakers can interrogate the wo... Read More Keywords: Essay film, autobiography, archive, self-reflexivity, home movies, Chilean cinema, Tales from my Chilhood, Evil Eye |
Muriel TINEL-TEMPLE Abstract: When looking at some recent essay films exploring personal and family stories, one notices that it is quite common and even expected to include personal archives and historical material alongside the primary narration and original footage. What is less common is when the film does not appear to use any orig... Read More Keywords: First-person filmmaking, found footage, appropriation, individual and collective memories, personally constructed archive, voice-over, Michel Foucault |
Individual Testimonies of Trans-individual Crisis: The Covid-19 Confinement Essay Film Liri CHAPELAN Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic, and the unprecedented confinement measures it prompted governments to take, has led to a boom of audiovisual testimonies of the numerous facets this global phenomenon has assumed. Some of the testimonies have taken the shape of essay films which embrace the topic of the restrictions i... Read More Keywords: pandemic media, essay film, carceral experience, (self-)confinement film, lettres de cinéma |
Foregrounding the Digital Medium: Self-reference and Metareference in Video Essays Cristian Eduard DRĂGAN Abstract: This article focuses on video essays —understood as that specific subgenre of audio-visual productions that can be considered the main descendent of the essay film. Both are, in a sense, subjective explorations of certain subject matters via cinematic means —with the prime exception that video e... Read More Keywords: Self-reference, metareference, video essay, essay film, self-representation, medium, medium-awareness, digital video |
The Amazed Spectator: An Essay Film Focused on the Viewers Teresa LIMA Abstract: This article intends to identify characteristic traits of the essay film in The Amazed Spectator / O Espectador Espantado (2016), by the Portuguese filmmaker Edgar Pêra. Throughout the analysis, I reflect on how the use of different types of resources—technical (3D), compositio... Read More Keywords: The Amazed Spectator, essay film, spectatorship, Edgar Pêra, 3D |
Elke MÖLLER Abstract: Liwaa Yazji’s film Maskoon (Germany/Syria/Lebanon, 2014), internationally known as Haunted, follows nine individuals in the midst of the ongoing civil war in Syria, including a couple trapped in their house surrounded by snipers, a Syrian man of Palestinian descent who has fled to Lebanon, a ... Read More Keywords: Maskoon/Haunted, essayism, essay film, dialog, Syria, civil war, trauma, memory, home, haunting |
Cinematic Dissidence: Copel Moscu’s Essay Subversiveness in Ceaușescu’s Romania Mihai DRAGOLEA Abstract: This article explores Copel Moscu’s short essay films Evening Classes / Seraliștii (1982) and A Day Like Any Other / Va veni o zi (1985), analysing how a critical and political perspective was developed by the filmmaker under the inquisitive view of the communist r... Read More Keywords: essay film, subversiveness, communist censorship, associative montage, self-reference |
The Essay as Mode of Expression and the Essayistic Practices in Radu Jude’s Cinema Doru POP Abstract: Like most European national cinemas, the Romanian film industry has developed a strong tendency towards authorship, with many contemporary filmmakers using various forms of expression that represent their personal views about the world, society and humanity. While Romanian cinema did not fully develop its o... Read More Keywords: Romanian cinema, essay film, essayistic practices, visual essay, essay genre, Radu Jude |
World Cinema and the Essay Film: Research into Transnational Modes of Thought and Meaning-making Mihai DRAGOLEA Abstract: Review of: |
The Audiovisual Essay in the Post-Cinematic Age Fátima CHINITA Abstract: Review of: |
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