In Dreams Awake: A documentary film about artist Humberto Calzada directed and written by Anabel Leal and Reinaldo Cruz

This flyer promotes the screening of the film "In Dreams Awake", A documentary film about artist Humberto Calzada directed and written by Anabel Leal and Reinaldo Cruz. This event A panel discussion with the artist, as well as the directors and writers of the documentary will followed the film screening. This event was cosponsored by the Frost Art Museum, the Center for the Humanities in an Urban Environment, and WPBT2.

Panel Discussion on the documentary film 'Manufactured Landscapes'

Manufactured Landscapes is a documentary about the work of the world-renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. A panel discussion on the film followed the screening. Event held at the Wertheim Conservatory, September 4, 2012.

Documentary as history, memory, dream and film

A century ago, as the Western world embarked on a period of traumatic change, the visual realism of photography and documentary film brought print and radio news to life. The vision that these new mediums threw into stark relief was one of intense social and political upheaval: the birth of modernity fired and tempered in the crucible of the Great War. As millions died in this fiery chamber and the influenza pandemic that followed, lines of empires staggered to their fall, and new geo-political boundaries were scored in the raw, red flesh of Europe. The decade of 1910 to 1919 also heralded a prolific period of artistic experimentation. It marked the beginning of the social and artistic age of modernity and, with it, the nascent beginnings of a new art form: film. We still live in the shadow of this violent, traumatic and fertile age; haunted by the ghosts of Flanders and Gallipoli and its ripples of innovation and creativity. Something happened here, but to understand how and why is not easy; for the documentary images we carry with us in our collective cultural memory have become what Baudrillard refers to as simulacra. Detached from their referents, they have become referents themselves, to underscore other, grand narratives in television and Hollywood films. The personal histories of the individuals they represent so graphically–and their hope, love and loss–are folded into a national story that serves, like war memorials and national holidays, to buttress social myths and values. And, as filmic images cross-pollinate, with each iteration offering a new catharsis, events that must have been terrifying or wondrous are abstracted. In this paper we first discuss this transformation through reference to theories of documentary and memory–this will form a conceptual framework for a subsequent discussion of the short film Anmer. Produced by the first author in 2010, Anmer is a visual essay on documentary, simulacra and the symbolic narratives of history. Its form, structure and aesthetic speak of the confluence of documentary, history, memory and dream. Located in the first decade of the twentieth century, its non-linear narratives of personal tragedy and poetic dreamscapes are an evocative reminder of the distance between intimate experience, grand narratives, and the mythologies of popular films. This transformation of documentary sources not only played out in the processes of the film’s production, but also came to form its theme.

Documentary display : re-viewing nonfiction film and video

Not all documentary films and videos are sober depictions of the real world. Documentary representations can present expressive, entertaining and spectacular images. This book examines such innovative approaches as they occur within the process of 'documentary display' - a practice which emphasises the visual attractions of documentary representation. Works of documentary display explore modes of exhibitionistic 'showing' in which sensation is frequently the vehicle of cognition and knowledge. Such a display is analysed within the popular and prominent forms of found-footage film, 'rockumentary', the city film, nonfiction surf film and video, and certain views of natural science topics. This accessible and informed study - with its focus on entertaining, popular, spectacular and sensational froms of nonfiction representation - makes an important contribution to theoretical analyses of documentary film and video

Orchids : intersex and identity in documentary

Orchids: Intersex and Identity in Documentary explores the creative practice challenges of working with bodies with intersex in the long-form auto/biographical documentary Orchids. Just as creative practice research challenges the dominant hegemony of quantitative and qualitative research, so does my creative work position itself as a nuanced piece, pushing the boundaries of traditional cultural studies theories, documentary film practice and creative practice method, through its distinctive distillation and celebration of a new form of discursive rupturing, the intersex voice.

(Im)moral bodies : intersex and auto/biographical documentary

In this paper I question the representation of and ethical responsibilities to young people with intersex (hermaphroditic) conditions in documentary film, and explore the creative practice challenges working with bodies with intersex, embedded in the production of a feature auto/biographical documentary entitled Orchids. Bodies with intersex conditions are often presented as abject, in need of ‘fixing’ during infancy and early childhood, undesirable, and incapable of desire. Seen through the lens of experience and memory, Orchids takes a personal coming-of-age narrative and reconfigures understandings of the (im)moral body in the light of its transformative potential. Just as practice research challenges the dominant hegemony of quantitative and qualitative research, my creative work positions itself as a nuanced performative piece, and through its distinctive distillation and celebration of a new form of discursive rupturing discovers the intersex voice.