Abstract
Over recent years, the interest in and frequency of animated documentaries has risen to form something of a critical mass. Hosted by Edinburgh College of Art in association with the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), this two-day international academic conference had a reasonably wide scope. Papers were invited to engage with any aspect of the animated documentary, from theory to practice-based panels. As the conference included screenings alongside the papers, the programme was full and varied in nature. In some sectors of Film Studies (though less so in Animation Studies), there is a view that if a film is animated it cannot possess the ‘real’ elements to allow it to be defined as a documentary; much of this is connected to the perceived lack of an indexical link between the referent and the animated image. However, in contemporary debate, and apparent at this groundbreaking event, such a notion was completely dispelled.
The conference opened with a keynote address from Paul Ward (Arts University College, Bournemouth) – a scholar well known in the field for his research in both live-action and animated documentary. He discussed three main elements which would run through many of the papers: that of the performative nature of animated documentary, and the relationship between the subject and the animator; elements of practice, particularly in terms of research; and finally areas of pedagogy. The tone was well set by this introduction, and the panels which followed continued to examine several of these themes.
The scale of the conference (over 40 papers and more than 80 delegates) necessitated parallel sessions; it was impossible to attend them all but there was enough information in the programme to make a judgement on what topics would be examined. In the panel ‘Animated Documentary and the Spectacular’, Bella Honess Roe (University of Surrey) (another much cited specialist on the subject) looked at ‘Spectacular Reality: The Pleasurable Tensions of Surface, Content and Context in Animated Documentary’. She used examples of Walking with Dinosaurs and Wonders of the Solar System, made by the BBC, to examine some of the constructed nature of TV documentary. Her co-panellist, Leon Gurevitch (Victoria University, Wellington) discussed the use of CGI in his paper ‘The Documentary Attraction: Animation, Simulation and the Rhetoric of Experience’. Later discussion was varied but did include the problems in ‘selling’ these experiences to an audience as well as the notion of the ‘extra textual’ in animated documentary. A point raised in the previous panel, regarding documentary games, was covered in some depth in the next session with a notable paper by conference co-organizer Nea Erlich (University of Edinburgh). Erlich looked at living in virtual worlds and the use of documentary games in education.
The afternoon session featured several documentary filmmakers showing and discussing their work. This gave the audience the opportunity to consider some examples of how powerful the animated documentary could be with moving films from Ann Marie Fleming (Sleepy Dog Films) and Jonathan Hodgson (Middlesex University). This session also allowed for a fascinating look at the collaborative nature of the relationship between the animator and subject by Samantha Moore (University of Wolverhampton/Loughborough University).
The academic sessions ended for the day with another keynote address, this time from Sheila Sofian (University of Southern California) with a paper entitled ‘Creative Challenges in the Production of Documentary Animation’. Sofian discussed examples of her own work (as well as other filmmakers) explaining her reasons for using animation. The address also brought together some of the key areas of discussion which had arisen throughout the day – that of animation being used when live action cannot, and the impact it might have on audiences. The power and impact of the animated documentary was demonstrated in full in the first of the co-ordinated EIFF screenings. The feature-length live-action/animation documentary The Green Wave (2010, dir. Ali Samadi Ahadi, Germany/Iran) played to a full house and was arguably shocking in content as it contained largely hidden (from Western media) material of the extent of the violence in the so-called green revolution in Iran in 2009. Ali Samadi Ahadi participated in a Q&A session after the screening (which he would kindly repeat for the conference delegates the next afternoon).
The second day began with panels on spectatorship as well as historical approaches. Notable in the historical session was the presentation by Annegret Richter (International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Films) who told the history of the festival and the changes to the format over the decades which had occurred largely through political upheaval, such as censorship. One of the areas of animated documentary, which has already been a topic for discussion over recent years, has been the concepts of memory and nostalgia. In this panel, all three participants looked at films which used specific styles of drawn animation to evoke memory of childhood events.
In the second Q&A, The Green Wave director Ali Samadi Ahadi had more time for in-depth discussion centred on his film. The points raised were very interesting and the questions quite probing from some of the delegates. He seemed to enjoy the chance to talk more about the work and the challenges he had faced in the process of creating it. This included such questions as whether he had had any political goals in mind when making the film, or ideas on how to affect change; the director explained how he wanted the film to inspire and raise questions rather than provide answers. The film was a clear example of a decision to use animation where there was no live-action footage available, and arguably the violence would not have been shown in live action due to the extremely graphic nature of the content. Although the animation was quite limited in places, it was often used to great effect and the film was very powerful in creating an atmosphere of chaos and confusion as well as portraying extreme violence and oppression.
The final paper sessions featured panels on ‘Divided Nations’ and ‘Pedagogy’. The latter featured an impressive presentation in the form of an animated documentary from one of the founding scholars in animation studies, David Williams (Independent Scholar). Known for presenting his work in this format, he examined the work of Sheila Graber, the British animator who created animated documentaries for children, shown in galleries and on British TV.
The final keynote session of the conference was delivered by prolific Animation Studies scholar Paul Wells, who brought together several of the themes discussed by the panellists and some of his thoughts on where the animated documentary, and its study, might be going. He suggested that now that the ‘genre’ (for want of a better term) had been quite thoroughly categorized, it might be time to develop critical thought further. He posited that ‘animated documentary’ was quite a limiting label and instead suggested that ‘animated non-fiction’ could better serve the increasingly wide array of films which could come under such a heading.
The event closed with a programme of new animated documentary short films at EIFF. The selection was varied in both tone and animation style with a truly international feel: I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors (2010, dir. Ann Marie Fleming, Canada), American Homes (2010, dir. Bernard Friedman, USA), 1989 (When I Was Five Years Old) (2010, dir. Thior Ochsner, Denmark), The Next One (2010, dir. Barbara Raedschelders, Belgium), The Stitches Speak (2009, dir. Nina Sabnani, India), My Mother’s Coat (2010, dir. Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits, UK) and Abuelas (2010, dir. Afarin Eghbal, UK).
This was the first conference completely dedicated to the topic of the animated documentary, or animated non-fiction, and the high level of participation demonstrates how vital an area it is. The Animation Studies subject area is growing year on year, but to be able to attract such a wide range of interest on one particular aspect demonstrates the increasing profile of animation, and Animation Studies, over the last two decades. Animated Realities has laid the groundwork for more specialist events in and around animation, and will hopefully have reinforced to wider audiences the importance of animation as a cultural and artistic medium.