The Essay Film Festival

27th March 202127th March 2021

Is This Just a Story? Celebrating the Yugantar Film Collective: An Introduction

In 1975, Indira Gandhi’s Government imposed a state of emergency suspending India’s democratic rights. For almost two years, the country witnessed rigorous restrictions of civil liberties including censorship, political persecution and mass sterilisation. After the Janata Government took office in 1977, the country saw a reassertion of democracy in which the women’s movement was a key effort. This programme presents three recently restored films by India’s first feminist film collective. Founded in Bangalore in 1980, Deepa Dhanraj, Abha Bhaiya, Navroze Contractor and Meera Rao created four pioneering films during this time of radical political transformation:

25th March 202125th March 2021

RE-WRITING LOVE, MAKING A FILM

An intimate diary on the subject of ‘My Mexican Bretzel’ (Nuria Giménez Lorang, 2019)

01/02/2021

At which point in time does my already abandoned diary become the place to dump work ideas? Today I am recovering it to record my experience of viewing Nuria Giménez Lorang’s award-winning My Mexican Bretzel (2019), as well as her participation at The Essay Film Festival 2021. Just as the film is constructed around the intimate diary of Vivian Barrett – a Swiss housewife of a well-of social class, I thought it appropriate to write my curatorial note in a similar form.

28th October 202029th January 2021

FOUND FOOTAGE OPEN FORUM

The Found Footage Open Forum is the first of a new series of events to showcase the creative work-in-progress of research students. This event will feature contributions from research students, who will discuss their own experience of working with found footage in academic and artistic contexts. Above all, the event will provide a critical forum for conversation and exchange, and an open platform for practitioners to introduce themselves and their work and engage in discussion about found footage and the archive.

28th October 202029th January 2021

To Bring the World into the World: Recent Work by Sarah Wood

Boat People (2016), 23 mins
Murmuration x 10 (2015), 21 mins
Azure (2016), 7 mins
Dear Rosa (2019), 3 mins

This event was followed by a Q&A with Sarah Wood, which is available to watch online here

At the end of the nineteenth century when the Lumière brothers perfected their cinématographe they dispatched envoys across the world to demonstrate the new technology. Their invention was about movement – the moving image was a form that travelled.

28th October 202029th January 2021

Home in E Major

Home in E Major, Tamar Rachkovsky, USA, 2019

In this online event we presented Home in E Major, originally scheduled for the 2020 Essay Film Festival, a first-person essay film about unlikely friendships and what it means to find a home.

Following the screening, filmmaker Tamar Rachkovsky was in conversation with academic and experimental film programmer, Dr Kim Knowles (Aberystwyth University). The recorded Q&A is available to watch here.