Confronting Realities - Cinematic Autosociobiographies

In relation to many recent literary works that move around the format of literary autosociobiography Confronting Realities asks from an art practical and theoretical point of view how the format of cinematic autosociobiographies can be explored, described and produced, especially focusing on the fundamentally collaborative character of filmmaking. The project is designed on four levels: Level (1) of Autosociobiographical Exploration that will create the Laboratory of cinematic autosociobiographies (LAFA). LAFA tries to probe, explore and search, to make accessible and to contextualize ones biography from an art-based perspective. Level (2) of Cinematic Forms and Techniques intends to develop and create narratives and cinematic techniques of cinematic (auto)sociobiographies and translating them into cinematic formats. Level (3) of Interdisciplinary and Theoretical Contextualization wishes to build a strong foundation and interconnection between art- based and interdisciplinary research about sociobiographies, cinematic forms and collaborative strategies of art production. Level (4) of Reflection and Evaluation intends to build a reflective framework around the project. During all these stages the Digital Archive of Cinematic Autosociobiographies (DAFA), a website-based representation and documentation platform, will ensure an ongoing dissemination and documentation of the project. So far, the field of cinematic autosociobiographies has not been explored neither theoretically nor practically, though several related cinematic formats exist. Confronting Realities therefore promises a pioneer work in this field. Furthermore, in times of a worldwide shift to the right marked by a rise in nationalism and populism, the question of social classes and its cultural, economic and political changes as well as their inscriptions into the individual have once again become topical. Primary staff involved in the project The Institute for Film and Television Film Academy Vienna / mdw University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna will host the project. The main contributors are Claudia Walkensteiner-Preschl (professor for media and film studies, project leader), Nina Kusturica (filmmaker, theatre director) Christina Wintersteiger (curator and media and film studies), Elena Meilicke (senior media and film studies scholar), and Barbara Wolfram (theatre & film artist and media and film studies & psychology scholar),

Auto-sociobiographical texts by authors such as Didier Eribon, Édouard Louis and Annie Ernaux link their own individual life stories to larger social contexts, weaving the personal to the political and asserting the relevance of class and social background with a new urgency. Autosociobiographical narratives are not only successful on the book market, but have also become a subject of research, especially in philology and sociology. Our artistic-scientific research project examined autosociobiographical narratives in the field of film. Our research questions: Do autosociobiographical narratives already exist in the medium of film, or do they need to be 'invented'? Where in contemporary filmmaking and/or film history can points of reference for autosociobiographical narratives be found? What are the themes, artistic forms and cinematic processes of autosociobiographical film practices? Where lie the particular challenges and potentials of autosociobiographical narratives in film? What can the sensuality and evidence of cinematic images and sounds do in the face of narrative styles that aim to overlap aesthetics and sociology? And what is the status of 'first-person stories' that emerge under the constitutively collaborative production conditions of filmmaking? Our project approached these questions from different angles. One part of our project group was artistically researching on autosociobiography as a method, and worked practically on the development and realisation of cinematic autosociobiographies. The focus was initially on methodological considerations for the generation of autosociobiographical material, followed by processes of autosociobiographical self-exploration and artistic-performative techniques of autosocioanalysis, with the help of which one's own experiences of the (non-)reproduction of social class could be examined. Specifically, questions of class and origin were addressed, as well as family constellations, maternal and paternal figures, inheritance and legacy, and above all also the question of how migration histories are linked to experiences of class change. Based on this preliminary work, the project produced a series of cinematic autosociobiographies, ranging from short sketches and fragments to feature-length documentaries. The other part of our project group dealt with autosociobiographical narratives in film from a critical-analytical perspective and endeavored to sharpen the conceptual and historical definition of the term in a series of academic lectures and essays. From a systematic point of view, the contributions examined the extent to which autosociobiographical narratives in film can be distinguished from autobiographical and autofictional narratives and also placed particular emphasis on the description of concrete artistic processes and staging strategies of cinematic autosociobiographies, such as voiceover or set design. In their selection of subjects, the contributions focused primarily on autosociobiographical narratives in the work of female filmmakers such as Agnès Varda, Céline Sciamma, Joanna Hogg, Sybille Bauer, Ji Su Kang-Gatto and others, thus providing insights into gender dimensions of autosociobiographical narration that have been little studied to date.