I attended the Birkbeck Essay Film Festival this weekend in order to gain insights into the essay film and to further my understanding of current academic perspectives of this ‘genre’ of filmmaking, which I propose to use to present my research findings.
Although the festival featured many examples of the audiovisual essay – a video lecture incorporating illustrative moving image extracts – the Festival of (In)Appropriation programme of experimental works created from appropriated archive footage resonated with my own approach and interests. This “showcase of contemporary, short audiovisual works that repurpose existing film, video, or other media in inventive ways” (Essay Film Festival, 2016) curated by Jaimie Baron proved to be something of a breakthrough. The works in the programme were exploratory and experimental in form, in contrast to the audiovisual essays, which functioned as self contained pedagogic packages for audience consumption. For me, as a filmmaker, the essential difference is that the author of the audiovisual essay occupies a position ‘outside’ their subject, whereas the essay film author speaks from a position of practice from within the work.
Held at Birkbeck Cinema, University of London, from 17 to 24 March 2016