Radical Filmmaking Special Issue, Screenworks 7.3

Presence, Steve; Crofts, Charlotte; Massoumi, Nariman; Nevill, Alex

Abstract

We are delighted to publish this volume of Screenworks, a special issue dedicated to exploring various forms of radical filmmaking. This issue was produced in association with the Radical Film Network, an international network of organisations involved in politically-committed and aesthetically innovative film culture, with support of the Digital Cultures Research Centre at UWE Bristol.

Indeed, each of the seven works featured in this issue are underpinned by their political commitment – be it to issues of migration and national identity, media power, sex and gender, inclusivity, war and peace – and there is scarce reference to those debates about realism and reflexivity that, until relatively recently, loomed so large in discussions of film and politics. Nevertheless, each work also explicitly engages with questions of film form, representational power, and the politics of aesthetics. Indeed, the range of political issues addressed in this issue is more than matched by the diversity of aesthetic strategies adopted. These films drawn on traditions of materialist filmmaking, ethnography, Scratch and bricolage, participatory documentary and artists’ film and video, and even pose new categories of their own, such as ‘representational activism’.

Many of the contributions address issues of participation and the ability of cinema to shape social relations. Others focus on and deconstruct media representation or questions of historiography. Whatever the thematic or aesthetic mode, this volume is testament to the vibrancy and diversity of critical, screen-based practice-as-research today. Long may it continue.

• Digital Artefact Type: Other
• Conference Name: N/A
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Keywords: radical film, film form, experimental film, political film, activist film
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/903059
• Related Public URLs: http://screenworks.org.uk/archive/volume-7-3