The essay-film, then and now

First theorised in the early decades of the twentieth century, in essays by filmmakers, artists and literary critics including Sergei Eisenstein (1928), Hans Richter (1940) and Alexandre Astruc (1948), the essay film emerged across disciplinary borders as a key form through which to use film, in conjunction with music, text and typically highly affective imagery, to express and stimulate critical thought. Importantly developed in French films of the 1950s by filmmakers including Alain Resnais, Chris Marker and Georges Franju, from the 1960s onward the essay film was also taken up in decolonial contexts, emerging as what has been termed a ‘cinema of liberation’ (Solanas and Getino, 1969); while in the 1980s it took on critical edge in the UK, for example in the pioneering work of the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC). As film and video became increasingly widespread media in the artworld, the ‘documentary turn’ in art heralded in 2002 by documenta 11 brought new energy and perspectives from a range of international figures. As noted by video artist Ursula Biemann (2003), the essay ‘has always distinguished itself by a non-linear and non-logical movement of thought that draws on many different sources of knowledge’, making it particularly apt for artists wishing to expand beyond conventional models of documentary. In contemporary art, as Nora Alter has argued (2018), the essay film has become a preeminent form, explored in richly diverse ways by leading artists including John Akomfrah, Elizabeth Price, Hito Steyerl and Johan Grimonprez. What does the essay film mean today, and how are artists using it to address contemporary political problems? How does the interdisciplinary history of the essay film shed new light on its contemporary versions in the artworld? What is distinctive about the essay film, in relation to other models of documentary practice employed in art, and what does it specifically enable?

This session invites papers which examine the essay film, in historic or contemporary practice, and which consider questions such as (but not limited to): the development of distinctive forms of political critique and the form’s contribution to political struggle, the role of music and affect, different uses of still and moving images, theorisation of distinctive forms of montage, the shaping of critical ‘voice’, environmental activism and forms of more than human collectivity, the uses of dystopian fiction and the development of forms of futurity, and any other themes which emerge from examination of examples of specific artistic and filmmaking practice.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Tamara Trodd, University of Edinburgh, tamara.trodd@ed.ac.uk