Case Studies: How Is a Story Negotiated?

Language: English with simultaneous interpretation.

What happens when we genuinely begin to share the power to shape one’s own story? Who a story belongs to is not decided once and for all by a signed consent form or the name that appears as the film’s author. It is negotiated throughout filming, during editing, and when the film enters circulation. Three case studies will explore situations in which the conventional division of roles between filmmaker and participant begins to shift: when participants become concerned about how their actions will be interpreted; when agency is expressed not through speech but through gesture, movement, or attention; and when participants themselves co-conceive and perform scenes based on their experiences. What does it mean to genuinely share narrative agency, and where does the filmmaker’s responsibility nevertheless remain?

Helen Lo: After Her Shift

What happens when a participant consents to being filmed but begins to worry about how audiences will interpret her? Through After Her Shift, Helen Lo will introduce the concept of “interpretive anxiety” – the uncertainty that arises when a film enters public circulation and its meaning can no longer be controlled. Through a specific disagreement over one sequence, she will examine how filmmakers can negotiate between a participant’s concerns, the audience’s freedom of interpretation, and the filmmaker’s responsibility for the final edit.

Hanga Tóth and Yohana Benattar: Cinéma Botanique

Does the ability to influence one’s own representation always have to entail the ability to speak? Cinéma Botanique, carried out with residents and staff in four French nursing homes, looks for forms of agency in gesture, movement, an interest in a particular sound or image, or in what a person chooses to attend to. Tóth and Benattar will present filmmaking as a place of encounter, in which participants’ practices of attention can redirect the filmmaker’s gaze – and, with it, the film itself.

Rand Beiruty: Tell Them About Us

Who decides how lived experience is translated into film? In the documentary Tell Them About Us, seven teenage girls co-conceive and perform fictionalized scenes rooted not only in their lived experiences, but also in their imagined lives, desires, and possible futures. Rand Beiruty will show how narrative agency takes shape through concrete decisions: what to stage, how to perform it, what to keep in the film, and what to withhold. Participatory (re)enactment does not resolve the structural asymmetry between filmmaker and participant – but it can make that negotiation of power visible.