<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Found footage filmmaking, or “archiveology” (Russell, 2008), has become a contemporary mode of understanding the collective past. At the same time, in some recent European documentaries we have a more intimate, personal use of archival (and animated) images. They construct two-strand narrative structures showing both the trauma of losing a parent and the excavation of the unresolved traumas of those ailing and passing. In <italic>Us against Us</italic> (<italic>Noi î</italic><italic>mpotriva noastr</italic><italic>ă</italic>, Andra Tarara, 2021) the director/daughter initiates a highly reflexive video dialogue with her schizophrenic father. <italic>Fragile Memory</italic> (<italic>Крихка пам‘ять</italic>, Igor Ivanko, 2022) is a grandson’s story about a former cameraman affected by Alzheimer’s. Postmemory and post-generational trauma work is in the focus of Aliona van der Horst’s films like <italic>Love is Potatoes</italic> (2017), in which her own mother’s emigration story is recovered through intermediality, or <italic>Turn Your Body to the Sun</italic> (2021), in which the digitally manipulated archival footage accompanies a woman’s quest for her father’s repressed memories. These are all medially hybrid films, which rely on the affordances of intermediality, and which combine present day footage with images from personal or public archives. Archiveology becomes in these films an affective tool in caring for family, and a reflection on the precarity of life and memory in general.<sup>1</sup></p>
</abstract>

Found footage filmmaking, or “archiveology” (Russell, 2008), has become a contemporary mode of understanding the collective past. At the same time, in some recent European documentaries we have a more intimate, personal use of archival (and animated) images. They construct two-strand narrative structures showing both the trauma of losing a parent and the excavation of the unresolved traumas of those ailing and passing. In Us against Us (Noi împotriva noastră, Andra Tarara, 2021) the director/daughter initiates a highly reflexive video dialogue with her schizophrenic father. Fragile Memory (Крихка пам‘ять, Igor Ivanko, 2022) is a grandson’s story about a former cameraman affected by Alzheimer’s. Postmemory and post-generational trauma work is in the focus of Aliona van der Horst’s films like Love is Potatoes (2017), in which her own mother’s emigration story is recovered through intermediality, or Turn Your Body to the Sun (2021), in which the digitally manipulated archival footage accompanies a woman’s quest for her father’s repressed memories. These are all medially hybrid films, which rely on the affordances of intermediality, and which combine present day footage with images from personal or public archives. Archiveology becomes in these films an affective tool in caring for family, and a reflection on the precarity of life and memory in general.1

Filial Care and Familial Postmemory. On the Uncanny and Affective Intermediality of Analogue Media Use in Recent European Documentaries

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Found footage filmmaking, or “archiveology” (Russell, 2008), has become a contemporary mode of understanding the collective past. At the same time, in some...

Filial Care and Familial Postmemory. On the Uncanny and Affective Intermediality of Analogue Media Use in Recent European Documentaries

Published Online: Dec 06, 2023

Page range: 80 - 91

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2023-0014

Keywords
found footage, photography, familial postmemory, affective intermediality, uncanny

© 2023 Melinda Blos-Jáni, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Filial Care and Familial Postmemory. On the Uncanny and Affective Intermediality of Analogue Media Use in Recent European Documentaries

Published Online: Dec 06, 2023

Page range: 80 - 91

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2023-0014

Keywordsfound footage, photography, familial postmemory, affective intermediality, uncanny

© 2023 Melinda Blos-Jáni, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
found footage, photography, familial postmemory, affective intermediality, uncanny