The Transparent “I”: Authority and Authorship in Anthropological Filmmaking

About The Transparent “I”: Authority and Authorship in Anthropological Filmmaking

As part of an ongoing effort to reframe how its collection is activated and interpreted, RAI FILM invited KONTEKST Collective to develop an independent curatorial response to its film catalogue. This invitation reflects RAI’s commitment to creating space for practices that question established frameworks and foster dialogue around how ethnographic film is interpreted, challenged and reimaged today.

The Transparent “I” – named as a nod to critical theorist Denise Ferreira da Silva – brings together films that interrogate authority and authorship in ethnographic representation.
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The programme curated by KONTEKST Collective will feature the shorts Wási (2017), All Eyez on Me! (2021), A Family Portrait (2022), and Making Worlds Otherwise (2020). Through reflexive approaches and formal experimentation, these films invite us to think over the processes in which they were produced, asking who gets to make films in the first place as well as who exactly they are made for.

This lineup comes together to highlight how contemporary tendencies in ethnographic filmmaking contrast conventional approaches by embracing subjectivity and playing with form, leading the audience to reflect on and look beyond common perspectives within the discipline.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with KONTEKST’s Arti Siudem, Ishy Pryce-Parchment and Sarah Khan, moderated by Lee Douglas (Centre for Visual Anthropology, Goldsmiths). The panel will contextualise the films within visual ethnographic tradition and raise questions surrounding agency and collaboration, therefore unpacking the power of images to create and transform knowledge.

The event is a product of KONTEKST’s ethos to reject hierarchical, expert-driven structures of “truth-making,” instead embracing decolonial and anti-expert ways of working and creating. It was programmed by Arti Siudem, Beatriz de Almeida, Emelie Victoria, Ishy Pryce-Parchment, Rosa Koivunoro, Sam McNeil and Sarah Khan.