Dr Norouzi Minou and working group (Migrant Screen Cultures)

Revolutionary Patience: Migrant Perspectives On Doing Politics With Documentary

Tieteellinen tutkimus / siihen pohjautuva työ | Kolmivuotinen

Revolutionary Patience examines documentaries and moving image works by women and non-binary filmmakers from the Middle East/Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) who are implicated in contemporary and historical waves of migration. The project significantly expands our understanding of the social relevance, and politics of documentary by locating the critical potential of migrant and diasporic cinema in strategies of objectification. Migrant perspectives on the strategies of objectification are positioned as critical aesthetic methods and forms of activism that prevent empathic identification as a redemptive act for the viewer. This provokes significant new approaches to thinking about the ethics of documentary. Ethical debates normally focus on the responsibility of filmmakers. This project shifts these classic debates calling our attention to the obligation of viewers instead. Revolutionary Patience, thus, critiques empathic engagement and offers strategies of objectification, including silences and narrative opacities, as patiently revolutionary methods of doing politics with documentary cinema. The study is focused on female and non-binary film practitioners with a background in the SWANA regions to redress insufficient film scholarship on the work of this under-represented group. The project therefore presents a corrective that seeks to create a fuller picture.