Films don’t simply reflect reality, they also, simultaneously create it. This is to say that the force of cinema is a prism where fantasies, experiences, hopes and nightmares come to be represented. Our collective thinking in this curriculum begins with this premise as it might help us escape the idea that narrative alone is most important. Here then, we offer readings that help us think about form, spectatorship, conditions of production and more must be accounted for. 

This unit looks toward the long history of revolutionary filmmaking as necessary tools of anti-colonial struggles in the global south and in the imperial core.  This history is put into conversation with more recent writing that focuses on the advent of what might now be called “trans film.” In staging this conversation, this unit is intent on building the viewer/reader's analytic vocabulary while also seeing what might stay hidden.

Discussion

  • What makes film revolutionary?

    • Can these same techniques also be deployed for reactionary images?

    • If so, what might be done to subvert this process?

  • How are the modes of cinematic production (how a film is made) inform what we see on screen? 

    • Is there a “trans” form of filmmaking? If yes, what might it be?

    • Do trans people make trans films, can non-trans people make trans films?

    • What is the relationship between identity and form? 

  • In what ways might normative trans narratives traffic in colonial tropes of progress and bodily composition? 

    • How might a filmmaker engage both joy and critique?

Reading/ Watching/ Engagement