Home Movies as Personal Archives in Autobiographical Documentaries

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study the use of home movies in films made with an autobiographical approach, in which the film-makers employ domestic material as personal archives in their quest to build a narrative out of their lives and the lives of their families. I will propose three different ways in which home movies are recycled in this context: naturalization, contradiction and historicization. These three approaches show the diversity and richness of meanings that these personal archives acquire when they become public in autobiographical films. For this analysis, I will draw from the work of film-makers such as Ross McElwee, Lise Yasui, Alina Marazzi or Michal Aviad.