International Workshop "Archives of Absence: Documentary Film and Archival Politics"

On 28 and 29 June, the Lichtenberg Kolleg hosted an international workshop on "Archives of Absence: Documentary Film and Archival Politics". The workshop brought together documentary filmmakers, local activists and academics at Göttingen to debate issues and share stories about archival research and the politics of the archive. Following questions were discussed: How do documentary filmmakers negotiate reality to tell personal and political stories when there is an erasure of history and the absence of an archive? How can documentary film stories be faithful to the recording of fact and truth if the visual archive is already `tainted’ and framed in the writing of an official history by those in power?

As part of the workshop, the art house theatre Lumiére (Geismarlandstr. 19, Göttingen) in cooperation with CeMIS screened two international award winning documentary films about politics and history on 28 June: At 5:00 pm Philip Scheffner’s 'The Halfmoon Files' and at 7:30 pm Vladimir Lèon’s 'Le Brahmane du Komintern.'