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[EFF15S1] Session 1: Why the Essay Film Now?
No full text24 March 2015, 13:00, Birkbeck Cinema
For the first Essay Film Festival’s opening event, we invited four leading scholars and critics who have made important contributions to the current debate about the vibrancy of the essay film tradition in contemporary film and moving image culture.
The speakers each addressed the question “Why the essay film now?” from their respective angles. The panel was then followed by general discussion with questions from the floor.
Panel:
• Christa Blümlinger (University Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis, author of Cinéma de seconde main: esthétique du remploi dans l’art du film et des nouveaux medias, Klincksieck: 2013)
• Catherine Grant (University of Sussex, founder of Film Studies for Free, and editor of REFRAME)
• Laura Rascaroli (University of Cork, author of The Personal Camera: Subjective Cinema and the Essay Film, Wallflower: 2009)
• Igor Krstic (postdoctoral researcher on accented essay films, University of Reading, and convenor of “World Cinema and the Essay Film” conference at University of Reading, 30 April–2 May 2015
Supplementary Data for G Driver JGR Planets paper "Large area Glacier-Like Forms on Mars, Insights from Crater Morphologies and Crater Retention Ages"
Full text linkDataset contains a number of spreadsheets of statistical data for the paper along with files applicable to the CraterStats program for surface age dating
[EFF15P1] Prelude 1: The Notebook Film
No full text16 January 2015, 18:00, Birkbeck Cinema
This first session featured several examples of “notebook” films presented by Laura Busetta, Marlène Monteiro and Muriel Tinel-Temple, who had previously organised a study day entitled “Self-Portraiture in the Moving Image” at BIMI in 2014.
The notebook film is a preparatory essay for another film to come, as well as a kind of foretaste to convince producers to finance the future film. It might typically feature the casting of actors, rehearsals with actors or technicians, exploration of locations, the testing out of ideas and possible narratives, or more general reflections from the director or other members of the team. In short, the film becomes an audiovisual “notebook” in which a future work is sketched out, and in that perspective these films exemplify one of the key features of the essay film, which is to show us the creative process of filmmaking.
Films: Location notes in Palestine for The Gospel according to Saint Matthew [Sporalluoghi per il vangelo secondo Matteo], Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1965, DVD, 55 minutes, Italian with English subtitles
Material shot during location research for the film The Gospel according to Saint Matthew (1964) becomes an essayistic reflection on the filmmaking process and the contemporary reality of Israel and Palestine.
Scenario for Sauve qui peut (la vie) [Scénario de Sauve qui peut (la vie)], Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland, 1979, DVD, 20 minutes, French with English subtitles
In 1979, in place of the expected written screenplay, Godard submitted a 20-minute video scenario to the French funding body CNC (Centre national du Cinéma), a self-reflexive sketch of the proposed film, Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980).
Letter from a Filmmaker [Lettre d’un cineaste], Alain Cavalier, France, 1982, DVD, 13 minutes, French with English subtitles
Composed for the French television programme Cinéma cinéma, which regularly featured such “letters from filmmakers”, this video-letter allows Cavalier the opportunity to reflect on the making of his film Thérèse (1986).
Les Années quatre-vingt, Chantal Akerman, Belgium, 1983, DVD, 82 minutes [extracts], French with English subtitles
Akerman’s essay film explores the preparation, funding and rehearsals for what would become her unique interpretation of the musical, Golden Eighties (1986)
[EFF15P2] Prelude 2: Conversation with Consuelo Lins
No full text13 February 2015, 19:00, Birkbeck Cinema
This second prelude to the Essay Film Festival 2015 focused on the essay film in contemporary Brazilian cinema. Filmmaker and academic Consuelo Lins (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) discussed her work, and showed examples of her films, in conversation with Cecilia Sayad (University of Kent), the author of Performing Authorship (2013), a study of first-person filmmaking and the essay film.
Films: Nannies [Babás], Consuelo Lins, Brazil, 2010, digital, 20 minutes, Brazilian with English subtitles
Consuelo Lins’s Nannies combines autobiographical elements with a reflection on the presence of nannies in the daily life of countless Brazilian families, approaching a subject quite rare in contemporary audio-visual productions. The movie ponders upon a typically Brazilian situation, in which affective bonds are genuine but incapable of dissolving layers of oppression – thus echoing some aspects of Brazil’s historical past, namely the period of black slavery. With a subjective narration, the film incorporates photographs, domestic footage and newspaper advertisements from the 20th century, as well as contemporary images of nannies and children shot in the beaches and parks of Rio de Janeiro. Nannies has been shown at festivals in Leipzig, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, and New Orleans.
Readings [Leituras], Consuelo Lins, France, 2005, digital, 6 minutes, Brazilian with English subtitles
In this film Lins portrays anonymous readers on the trains and subways of Paris. Readings has been shown at the Belo Horizonte film festival.
Seams [Costuras], Karim Ainouz, Brazil, 1993, digital, 29 minutes, Brazilian with English subtitles
The film blends archival footage set in the Brazil of 1940s-1960s with the filmmaker’s conversations with his grandmother and great-aunts. From this material, Ainouz reflects on the Brazilian “macho” culture through the experience of having been raised exclusively by women. The conversations explore the women’s attitudes to work, to men, and to sexuality. Karim Aïnouz is a film director and a visual artist. His film Seams received the Vito Russo Award of the New Festival in New York. His most recent feature, Praia do futuro, was premiered at the 64th Berlinale Competition in 2014
[EFF15S6] Session 6: Los Angeles Plays Itself
No full text26 March 2015, 17:30, ICA Cinema
Film: Los Angeles Plays Itself, Thom Andersen, 2003/2014, USA, DCP, 170 minutes, English
Thom Andersen’s landmark documentary, Los Angeles Plays Itself, now available in a re-mastered and re-edited version, explores the tangled relationship between the movies and their fabled hometown – as seen entirely though the films themselves. This video essay is an overwhelming work of film archaeology, delving deeply into the various archetypical and often contradictory ways in which film has represented and defined Los Angeles against the city itself, its rich and complex history, its people and communities. Masterfully edited by Andersen out of hundreds of film excerpts, Los Angeles Plays Itself is constructed in three thematic sections: the city as background, the city as character, and the city as subject. Ultimately Thom Andersen’s gesture is one of militant nostalgia (using his own words), a recuperation of a city’s vanished history
Essay Film Festival: 2015
No full textFESTIVAL
24-29 March 2015, Birkbeck Cinema and ICA Cinema
Programme introduction EFF 2015
This inaugural edition of Birkbeck’s Essay Film Festival featured a varied programme of screenings, discussions and special guests.
Featured artists will include Thom Andersen, Esfir Shub, The Otolith Group, Peter von Bagh, and Constanze Ruhm.
For this first edition, there will be a strong emphasis on found footage and the compilation film, as well as recent essay films from around the world.
As part of the Essay Film Festival, the ICA will be showing a series of works by major practitioners of the essay film. These will include a tribute to Peter von Bagh, with a programme featuring Helsinki, Forever (2008) and Remembrance (2014); an evening devoted to The Otolith Group including In the Year of the Quiet Sun (2013); a rare screening of the Iranian collective film Profession Documentarist (2014); and several works by Thom Andersen, including a new version of Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), and the UK premiere of his latest film, The Thoughts That Once We Had (2015).
At Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image there will be daytime screenings and discussion events, including a conference on “Why the Essay Film Now?”; a day of screenings devoted to Esfir Shub; masterclasses by Constanze Ruhm and Thom Andersen; and a closing programme of contemporary films featuring work from Portugal, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the USA
[EFF15S5] Session 5: The Thoughts That Once We Had
No full text25 March 2015, 20:45, ICA Cinema
Film: The Thoughts That Once We Had, Thom Andersen, USA, 2015, DCP, 108 minutes, English
Inspired by the writing of Gilles Deleuze on cinema, Thom Andersen’s new film, The Thoughts That Once We Had, is a richly layered journey through cinematic history, masterfully edited as it moves across decades and genres, and suffused at every turn by the filmmaker’s lifelong passion for the movies. “This meticulous product of years of reading and lecturing about Deleuze’s Cinéma… Thom Andersen jumps from close-ups of manual labour shown by Dovzhenko, to a montage of Marlene Dietrich’s face in a succession of films by von Sternberg – from the uncut scene of Mike Hammer asking Christina to read him Christina Rossetti’s poem twice, to breathtakingly beautiful shots of the sky and the sea excerpted from Godard…” (Bérénice Reynaud)
This screening was followed by a discussion between Thom Andersen and Michael Witt, author of Jean-Luc Godard: Cinema Historian, Indiana University Press, 2014
Parent attitudes to data sharing
No full textThe dataset contains all variables from the Parent attitudes to data sharing questionnaire (developed in house at Birkbeck). The dataset includes demographic details such as sex of the parent, sex of the child parents are referring to, highest education levels of parents, annual household income, ethnicity and whether there are neurodivergent children within the family. Parents responses to both free text questions about the benefits/risks of sharing their child's data as well as their comfort levels/preference for different types of data sharing with different organisation
Interview with Stephanie Blythman recorded via Zencastr on 01/05/2021.
Full text linkStephanie was born in Dublin in 1990 and grew up in Glen of the Downs, County Wicklow. She has two younger brothers, and her parents worked in insurance. Stephanie talks about her parents’ mixed marriage (Presbyterian-Catholic), attitudes to religion and attendance at churches.
Stephanie described changes in friendships and social circles as a teenager and her first experience of a romantic relationship. She remembers attending an independent, international school and how she experienced the teaching and ethos. She also discusses her further education, beginning with her enjoyment of a Drama and French degree at Trinity College Dublin. She talks about how she became interested in costume design and her training and career
[EFF15S2] Session 2: Helsinki, Forever
No full text24 March 2015, 18:30, ICA Cinema
Film: Helsinki, Forever [Helsinki, ikusesti], Peter von Bagh, Finland, 2008, 35mm, 74 minutes, Finnish with English subtitles
Introduced by Olaf Möller, film critic and programmer
Helsinki, Forever was a breakthrough for Peter von Bagh, and a film that drew on decades of filmmaking, writing, researching and curating. The film brought another dimension to Peter von Bagh’s ongoing discussion about the history of Finland, as seen through its culture, its icons, music, cinema, literature and politics. It is a unique film in the way it portrays the city of Helsinki through a dazzling amount of sensitively edited images, music and texts extending over several decades. In a letter to Peter von Bagh, the filmmaker Chris Marker wrote: “Few movies may boast a stronger opening sequence, and few movies offer such an extraordinary finale… Helsinki, Forever deserves its rank among the great ‘city-poems’… With the choice of incredible documents and the unfailing mixture of both musical items, editing and score, you made an unforgettable film.”
Supported by Goethe-Institut London and the Finnish Institute in London