Is there such a thing as a feminist documentary?

An illustrated talk by filmmaker and media theorist Bernadette Wegenstein, Johns Hopkins University, US, followed by a discussion about documentary filmmaking

Documentary film has traditionally been understood as non-interventionist. The camera lens documents a reality as close as possible to the one lived by its characters. This talk troubles that narrative by delving into the method of directing Cinema Verite characters and the contract that develops between a director and his or her real characters on a Verite set. Drawing from her own experience directing the recent documentaries The Good Breast (2016) and Devoti tutti (in progress), Bernadette Wegenstein argues that feminist documentary practice, far from documenting the world in a passive sense, requires a fully interactive and embodied approach to the world of the characters. This means that through this interaction the world of the character reveals itself and speaks — even when it is silenced in the “real world.” But is this world really the world of the character, or is it a world that the documentary film has actually created? And what does this mean for a “feminist point of view”?

This event is hosted by the Screen and Audiovisual Research Unit in the Department of Media and Communications.

About the Speaker
Bernadette Wegenstein is an Austrian-born media theorist and a documentary filmmaker. She is Professor of Media Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in the US, where she is also the founder and director of the Center for Advanced Media Studies. Her numerous publications include two MIT Press books, The Cosmetic Gaze: Body Modification and the Construction of Beauty (2012) and Getting Under the Skin: Body and Media Theory (2006).

Website: http://bernadettewegenstein.com/

Dates & times

Date	Time	Add to calendar
3 Feb 2017	6:00pm - 8:00pm	apple google outlook

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