Changing the frame: found-footage documentary and female reclaiming of the archive in The Notes of Anna Azzori

In the context of a reflection on the use of the archive in found footage films and the relationship between womens’ filmmaking and womens’ history, this article focuses on Constanze Ruhm’s Gli appunti di Anna Azzori/Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (The Notes of Anna Azzori. A Mirror that Travels through Time , 2020). The film is inspired by the underground Italian film Anna (1975) by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, an experiment influenced by Cesare Zavattini’s “poetics of objectivity”, and made in the context of the post-68 protests and social conflict. The Notes of Anna Azzori is an ideal work to reflect on the politics of found footage in contemporary women’s documentary cinema and the re-reading of archival film images, to contribute to existing discourse on “reclaiming” the archive and to the broad contemporary debate between film history and women’s history. Ruhm’s film demonstrates the potential of applying a gendered political perspective to the audiovisual materials of the past, in order to question the heteronormative patriarchy of the archive and to engage in a discussion on women’s representation in filmmaking. Looking at this case study through the eyes of feminist debate on the archive and women’s historiography thus provides the opportunity to reflect on how contemporary found footage documentary film can be also a strategic aesthetic and political practice pursued by women filmmakers to write a “history from below”.In the context of a reflection on the use of the archive in found footage films and the relationship between womens’ filmmaking and womens’ history, this article focuses on Constanze Ruhm’s Gli appunti di Anna Azzori/Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (The Notes of Anna Azzori. A Mirror that Travels through Time , 2020). The film is inspired by the underground Italian film Anna (1975) by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, an experiment influenced by Cesare Zavattini’s “poetics of objectivity”, and made in the context of the post-68 protests and social conflict. The Notes of Anna Azzori is an ideal work to reflect on the politics of found footage in contemporary women’s documentary cinema and the re-reading of archival film images, to contribute to existing discourse on “reclaiming” the archive and to the broad contemporary debate between film history and women’s history. Ruhm’s film demonstrates the potential of applying a gendered political perspective to the audiovisual materials of the past, in order to question the heteronormative patriarchy of the archive and to engage in a discussion on women’s representation in filmmaking. Looking at this case study through the eyes of feminist debate on the archive and women’s historiography thus provides the opportunity to reflect on how contemporary found footage documentary film can be also a strategic aesthetic and political practice pursued by women filmmakers to write a “history from below”.In the context of a reflection on the use of the archive in found footage films and the relationship between womens’ filmmaking and womens’ history, this article focuses on Constanze Ruhm’s Gli appunti di Anna Azzori/Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (The Notes of Anna Azzori. A Mirror that Travels through Time , 2020). The film is inspired by the underground Italian film Anna (1975) by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, an experiment influenced by Cesare Zavattini’s “poetics of objectivity”, and made in the context of the post-68 protests and social conflict. The Notes of Anna Azzori is an ideal work to reflect on the politics of found footage in contemporary women’s documentary cinema and the re-reading of archival film images, to contribute to existing discourse on “reclaiming” the archive and to the broad contemporary debate between film history and women’s history. Ruhm’s film demonstrates the potential of applying a gendered political perspective to the audiovisual materials of the past, in order to question the heteronormative patriarchy of the archive and to engage in a discussion on women’s representation in filmmaking. Looking at this case study through the eyes of feminist debate on the archive and women’s historiography thus provides the opportunity to reflect on how contemporary found footage documentary film can be also a strategic aesthetic and political practice pursued by women filmmakers to write a “history from below”.In the context of a reflection on the use of the archive in found footage films and the relationship between womens’ filmmaking and womens’ history, this article focuses on Constanze Ruhm’s Gli appunti di Anna Azzori/Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (The Notes of Anna Azzori. A Mirror that Travels through Time , 2020). The film is inspired by the underground Italian film Anna (1975) by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, an experiment influenced by Cesare Zavattini’s “poetics of objectivity”, and made in the context of the post-68 protests and social conflict. The Notes of Anna Azzori is an ideal work to reflect on the politics of found footage in contemporary women’s documentary cinema and the re-reading of archival film images, to contribute to existing discourse on “reclaiming” the archive and to the broad contemporary debate between film history and women’s history. Ruhm’s film demonstrates the potential of applying a gendered political perspective to the audiovisual materials of the past, in order to question the heteronormative patriarchy of the archive and to engage in a discussion on women’s representation in filmmaking. Looking at this case study through the eyes of feminist debate on the archive and women’s historiography thus provides the opportunity to reflect on how contemporary found footage documentary film can be also a strategic aesthetic and political practice pursued by women filmmakers to write a “history from below”.In the context of a reflection on the use of the archive in found footage films and the relationship between womens’ filmmaking and womens’ history, this article focuses on Constanze Ruhm’s Gli appunti di Anna Azzori/Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (The Notes of Anna Azzori. A Mirror that Travels through Time , 2020). The film is inspired by the underground Italian film Anna (1975) by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, an experiment influenced by Cesare Zavattini’s “poetics of objectivity”, and made in the context of the post-68 protests and social conflict. The Notes of Anna Azzori is an ideal work to reflect on the politics of found footage in contemporary women’s documentary cinema and the re-reading of archival film images, to contribute to existing discourse on “reclaiming” the archive and to the broad contemporary debate between film history and women’s history. Ruhm’s film demonstrates the potential of applying a gendered political perspective to the audiovisual materials of the past, in order to question the heteronormative patriarchy of the archive and to engage in a discussion on women’s representation in filmmaking. Looking at this case study through the eyes of feminist debate on the archive and women’s historiography thus provides the opportunity to reflect on how contemporary found footage documentary film can be also a strategic aesthetic and political practice pursued by women filmmakers to write a “history from below”.