F E M A L E A G E N C Y A N D D O C U M E N TA RY S T R AT E G I E S S U B J E C T I V I T I E S , I D E N T I T Y A N D AC T I V I S M EDITED BY BOEL ULFSDOTTER AND ANNA BACKMAN ROGERS FEMALE AGENCY AND DOCUMENTARY STRATEGIES FEMALE AGENCY AND DOCUMENTARY STRATEGIES Subjectivities, Identity and Activism Edited by Boel Ulfsdotter and Anna Backman Rogers Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organisation Boel Ulfsdotter and Anna Backman Rogers, 2018 © the chapters their several authors, 2018 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 10/12.5 pt Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 1947 5 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 1948 2 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 1949 9 (epub) The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI no. 2498). CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii Notes on the Contributors ix Foreword xiii Kate Nash Introduction 1 Boel Ulfsdotter and Anna Backman Rogers PART ONE NEW MEDIA AND ACTIVISM 1. The Pencil of Identity: Instagram as Inadvertent (Female) Autobiography 9 Kris Fallon 2. Archetype and Authenticity: Reflections on Amalia Ulman’s Excellences & Perfections 23 Cadence Kinsey 3. Blogging the Female Self: Authorship, Self-performance and Identity Politics in Fashion Blogs 38 Monica Titton contents PART TWO RELATIONALITY, SELFHOOD AND SUBJECTIVITIES 4. ‘Scriptrix Narrans’: Digital Documentary Storytelling’s Radical Potential 57 Gail Vanstone 5. Hybrid Practices and Voice Making in Contemporary Female Documentary Film 70 Kim Munro 6. Record Keeping: Family Memories on Film – Rea Tajiri’s History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashig and Wisdom Gone Wild 84 Kerreen Ely-Harper 7. ‘Not Because my Heart is Gone; Simply the Other Side’: Francesca Woodman’s Relational and Ephemeral Subjectivity at the Limit of the Image 100 Anna Backman Rogers 8. Other Women: Thinking Class and Gender in Contemporary Brazilian Documentary Film 114 Carla Maia Interview: ‘Visualising Our Voices’ – Hong Kong Scholar and Film Director Vivian Wenli Lin, in conversation with Boel Ulfsdotter 125 PART THREE IDENTITY POLITICS OF DOCUMENTARY 9. From Visceral Style to Discourse of Resistance: Reading Alka Sadat’s Afghan Documentaries on Violence Against Women 137 Anna Misiak 10. Documenting Georgia in Transition: The Films of Salomé Jashi and Nino Kirtadze 156 John A. Riley 11. Profession: Documentarist: Underground Documentary Making in Iran 170 Lidia Merás 12. ‘Reflecting through Images’: The Documentaries of Mercedes Álvarez 184 Linda Ehrlich Select Bibliography 194 Index 201 vi ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 Amalia Ulman, Excellences & Perfections (Instagram update, 5 September 2014), 2014. Image courtesy the artist and Arcadia Missa. 25 Figure 2 Amalia Ulman, Excellences & Perfections (Instagram update, 1 June 2014), 2014. Image courtesy the artist and Arcadia Missa. 28 Figure 3 Picture of Leandra Medine, posing on a playground in her hometown, New York City, published on her blog ‘The Man Repeller’ (http://www.manrepeller.com/2012/06/ toddler-dressing.html). 43 Figure 4 Picture of Tavi Gevinson wearing a sweater with ‘Feminist’ pattern published on her blog ‘Style Rookie’ (http://www. thestylerookie.com/2010/09/carnival.html). 47 Figure 5 Revealing secrets . . . Sharon Daniel’s Public Secrets. 62 Figure 6 Settler education: Aayu Peter in Alethea Arnaquq-Baril’s Angry Inuk. 67 Figure 7 Bombay Beach [DVD], dir. A. Har’el, Ro*co Films, 2011. 77 Figure 8 The Arbor [DVD], dir. Clio Barnard, Artangel, 2010. 79 Figure 9 History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige [DVD], dir. Rea Tajiri, USA, WMM, 1991. 87 Figure 10 Wisdom Gone Wild – Trailer 2:39 – ‘November 2015 – LACMA on Vimeo’, dir. Rea Tajiri, USA (https://vimeo. com/144466477). 95 illustrations Figure 11 Space, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975–8. 106 Figure 12 Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976. 109 Figure 13 Milk and Iron (Leite e ferro), Claudia Priscilla, Brazil, 2010. 119 Figure 14 Like Water Through Stone (A falta que me faz), Marília Rocha, Brazil, 2009. 122 Figure 15 Behind the scenes, VOW Media and IWE collaboration in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2015). 128 Figure 16 Learning the video camera, Displaced Daughters (2011). 132 Figure 17 Alka Sadat. 138 Figure 18 Alka Sadat. 141 Figure 19 Segment ‘Sepideh’ by Sepideh Abtani. 172 Figure 20 Segment ‘Sahar’ by Sahar Salahshoor. 177 Figure 21 Pello Azketa. 187 Figure 22 Parkours. 191 viii NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS Anna Backman Rogers is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is the author of American Independent Cinema: Rites of Passage and the Crisis Image (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) and the co-editor, with Laura Mulvey, of Feminisms (2015). Her monograph entitled ‘Sofia Coppola: The Politics of Visual Pleasure’ is forthcoming in 2017/2018. Linda Ehrlich – writer, teacher, editor – has published extensively about world cinema and about traditional theatre in such journals as Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Cinema Scope and Journal of Religion and Film. Cinematic Landscapes, her first book (co-edited with David Desser), is an anthology of essays on the interface between the visual arts and cinemas of China and Japan (1994; reprint in 2008). Her second edited book, The Cinema of Víctor Erice: An Open Window, appeared in 2000 (with an expanded paperback edition in 2007). Her newest book, Cinematic Reveries: Gestures, Stillness, Water, offers a collection of prose poems about key films (2013). Linda’s taped commentary on the Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena) appears on the Criterion DVD. She has also edited and annotated the memoirs of Juan Luis Buñuel (Good Films, Cheap Wine, Few Friends: A Memoir). In addi- tion, she has published three books of poetry (In the Breathing Time, Night Harbour, Bodegón) and one book for young readers (The Body is Round). Ehrlich has taught at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, Case Western Reserve University, and on the Semester-at-Sea programme. She received her PhD from the University of Hawaii/East-West Center. ix