Documentaries of the self: Updating memory by archive and space

• Grant number: 21/06379-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2022
• End date: February 19, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Cinema
• Principal Investigator: Ana Carolina de Moura Delfim Maciel
• Grantee: Laís de Lorenço Teixeira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/14733-1 - Space as "approximation": memory, performance, and archive in the Latin American documentary of the self, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The known "documentary of me" (MONTEIRO, 2015) are movies organized by a first-person narrative where a discursive I/me builds itself throughout the movie and it's not necessarily coincident with the director. Having the contemporary production of Latin American documentaries as a framework, in this research I pay attention to how these movies use archive material and articulations (presence, remembrance, reference) with space to make their memory exercise. In the documentary field that already assimilates the presence of a subjective and personal I/me as a narrative thread, this research's corpus is organized by six films, highlighting the recurrences and intersections between the use of documents in various supports (old audio and video recordings, photographs, etc.) and space interactions, always analyzing the construction and inscription of the I/me in its memory exercise.The documentaries reunited in this research indicate a recurrent use of documents and visits to places from the past to investigate events and make memory updates thus creating meaning through the narration, movie editing, and documental practice itself. Archive material, heavily used in subjective style documentaries, offer other outlines than the simple illustration and evidence. Likewise, the presence and reference to spaces go beyond a simple stage or place of events, working as aggregator and creator of meaning in the documental piece of work, being utilized in the subjective construction of an I/me.