Film(ed) Evidence: Strategies to Reclaim Justice (2023-2025)

The aim is to shift the centrality of the filmmaker in the production process to explore collective filmmaking practices as a method to facilitate justice making. The purpose is to investigate how images produced by civilians revitalises democratic values in society when used as evidence of historical and political injustices. The research focus is on home and homelessness (displacement) where the experiences and testimony of women are prioritised. Events or traces of events are captured through immediately accessible mobile devices which function as evidence but requires close reading by witnesses to produce meanings that are intrinsic to confirming their veracity. This research will endeavour to explore the implications of collapsing the differentiation between indexical “authentic” images and its mimetic cinematic forms produced on mobile devices. By experimenting with the interchangeability and non-differentiated relation between indexical and cinematic representations, women’s experiences as “homemakers” or “home builders” contrast with homelessness through historical events and forced migration. The enquiry posed is what it means to (re)build a home under oppressive socio-political conditions and in economically marginalised circumstances when home has often implied a space of safety and sanctuary. Through workshops participants attest to their experiences of displacement through personal archives, social media images and testimonies in collective film practices.