Precarity and Resistance: Mediating Home across Contemporary Europe through the Short Hybrid Film

Addressing an increasingly globalised housing crisis, European filmmakers have turned their attention to the precarity of home, generating a vast mediascape of activist documentaries, essay films, shorts, and some features. Adopting a film and urbanism approach, in this article I take a specific foc...

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Main Author: Anna Viola Sborgi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University College Cork 2024-02-01
Series:Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue26/HTML/ArticleSborgi.html
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author Anna Viola Sborgi
author_facet Anna Viola Sborgi
author_sort Anna Viola Sborgi
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description Addressing an increasingly globalised housing crisis, European filmmakers have turned their attention to the precarity of home, generating a vast mediascape of activist documentaries, essay films, shorts, and some features. Adopting a film and urbanism approach, in this article I take a specific focus on the short film form, framing it as a space for experimentation, and offering a snapshot of a wider transnational corpus of media. I compare two 2019 short films by two emerging women artists: British Ayo Akingbade’s Dear Babylon and Portuguese Leonor Teles Dogs Barking at Birds (Cães Que Ladram Aos Pássaros). These artists’ works establish film as a form of resistance while, at the same time, being rooted in an understanding of socio-economic inequality in housing. Purposedly merging observational, participatory methods with the fictional, these two films share a focus on young people in uncertain living conditions. Grappling with their individual situations the youth at the centre of these stories build forms of resistance to their present housing struggles in the attempt to shape a better future for themselves and their community.
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spelling doaj.art-b9d3070ccc5d4335809175c688e1ed542024-03-08T09:44:05ZengUniversity College CorkAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media2009-40782024-02-012612414010.33178/alpha.26.08Precarity and Resistance: Mediating Home across Contemporary Europe through the Short Hybrid FilmAnna Viola Sborgi0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0281-7861University College Cork. The University of LeedsAddressing an increasingly globalised housing crisis, European filmmakers have turned their attention to the precarity of home, generating a vast mediascape of activist documentaries, essay films, shorts, and some features. Adopting a film and urbanism approach, in this article I take a specific focus on the short film form, framing it as a space for experimentation, and offering a snapshot of a wider transnational corpus of media. I compare two 2019 short films by two emerging women artists: British Ayo Akingbade’s Dear Babylon and Portuguese Leonor Teles Dogs Barking at Birds (Cães Que Ladram Aos Pássaros). These artists’ works establish film as a form of resistance while, at the same time, being rooted in an understanding of socio-economic inequality in housing. Purposedly merging observational, participatory methods with the fictional, these two films share a focus on young people in uncertain living conditions. Grappling with their individual situations the youth at the centre of these stories build forms of resistance to their present housing struggles in the attempt to shape a better future for themselves and their community.https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue26/HTML/ArticleSborgi.htmlhousingresistanceshort filmtransnationalprecarity
spellingShingle Anna Viola Sborgi
Precarity and Resistance: Mediating Home across Contemporary Europe through the Short Hybrid Film
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media
housing
resistance
short film
transnational
precarity
title Precarity and Resistance: Mediating Home across Contemporary Europe through the Short Hybrid Film
title_full Precarity and Resistance: Mediating Home across Contemporary Europe through the Short Hybrid Film
title_fullStr Precarity and Resistance: Mediating Home across Contemporary Europe through the Short Hybrid Film
title_full_unstemmed Precarity and Resistance: Mediating Home across Contemporary Europe through the Short Hybrid Film
title_short Precarity and Resistance: Mediating Home across Contemporary Europe through the Short Hybrid Film
title_sort precarity and resistance mediating home across contemporary europe through the short hybrid film
topic housing
resistance
short film
transnational
precarity
url https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue26/HTML/ArticleSborgi.html
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