Travel has been a long companion to nonfiction filmmaking — and is often a part of the research and making process of documentarians. Over the course of three days we will look at films and artworks that reconsider the creative function of working with site and terrain — treating it as an essential formal element, or as an organizing structure to the film. In 2020, what can working in multiple geographic registers offer documentary practices?
Participants will think expansively about place-based filmmaking, considering complex questions around the history of the travelogue genre, territory, borders, and global capitalism. Led by filmmaker and programmer Courtney Stephens and co-organized with curator Mathilde Walker-Billaud and media artist Kara Oehler, this intensive seminar delivers both practical advice and creative inspiration to filmmakers, artists and storytellers of all kinds interested in utilizing spatial exploration as part of their own creative process.
From colonial legacies of the travelogue, to contemporary indexical films, road-trips to migrant voyages, this workshop explores the complex facets of modern mobility, and revisits established travel practice through economic, racial, and gendered lenses. Participants will have the opportunity to learn from a varied range of seasoned guest speakers, including writers, archivists, researchers, nonfiction filmmakers, and artists, that include Jessica Bardsley (Goodbye Thelma), Martin DiCicco (All That Passes By Through a Window That Doesn’t Open), Brett Story (The Hottest August), Nathalie Léger (author of Les vies silencieuses de Samuel Beckett and La Robe Blanche ), Jodie Mack (The Grand Bizarre) and more.
Participants will also have the chance to workshop their own works-in-progress or ideas with these experienced guests. The course will include a dynamic mix of readings, discussions, screenings, and visitor presentations. Topics will include: documenting ideas across geographies, working effectively in various communities, representing wilderness in times of ecological crisis, building narratives through the movement of people, and the flow of data in physical terms. The goal of the workshop is to inspire and encourage artists to work in a considered way with the rich possibilities of filmmaking in transit.
This workshop is part of “Women in Public” a series of events initiated by Kara Oehler, Courtney Stephens and Mathilde Walker-Billaud around the figure of the female traveler. It opens on Thursday January 23rd with a visual lecture by French writer Nathalie Leger at Triangle Arts Residency and close on Sunday January 26 with a screening at UnionDocs. (for more information, please visit: http://brooklynfallsforfrance.org/event/women-in-public/)
“Women in Public” is part of Brooklyn Falls for France, a cultural season organized by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and FACE Foundation in partnership with Brooklyn venues.