Super 8 Filmmaking in Paris: Geographies of Identity

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This course combines intensive workshops in Super 8 filmmaking and film theory. The class includes workshops on cinematography, hand-processing, animation and editing on Super 8 film. Each student will shoot, process, edit and complete a short Super 8 film. All cameras, film and editing equipment are provided. The course has included studio visits with filmmakers, artists and writers including Nicole Brenez, Johanna Vaude, Mike Ladd, and Zoulikha Bouabdellah among others.

Film workshops are taught by Baba Hillman and by members of French filmmakers’ cooperatives. Students are asked to write detailed proposals for their films, with a bibliography of related films and readings. We have access to the film library of the Forum des Images, which has the largest collection of films shot in the city of Paris and the surrounding suburbs.

Students attend screenings, performances and exhibits at the Cinématheque Française, Palais de Tokyo, Centre Pompidou, L’Institut du Monde Arabe, Le Champo, Le Centquatre and other cinemas, galleries and museums throughout the city. Critical work concentrates on the role of migration and diasporic communities in contemporary transnational film in Paris through a study of language, performance and visual structure within selected films. Seminars address such topics as changing cinematic representations of the architecture and urban space of the city, and the politics of film funding, production and distribution in France.



Prerequisites: Introductory film, video, studio art, performance course or other media practice/theory course. Course events are presented in both French and English. There are no language prerequisites.

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Visiting Artists & Curators

Zoulikha Bouabdellah was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1977. She grew up in Algiers and moved to France in 1993. A graduate of the Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts de Cergy-Pontoise in 2002. Zoulikha Bouabdellah’s works, in installation, drawing, video and photography, deal with the effects of globalization and question their depictions with humour and subversion.

In 2003, she directed the video Let’s Dance (Dansons) in which she confuses the archetypes of French and Algerian cultures by performing a belly dance to the tune of the Marseillaise. The same year, her work featured in Experiments in the Arab Avant-garde at the French Cinémathèque (Paris). In 2005, Zoulikha Bouabdellah participated in Africa Remix at Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), and in 2008 in the festival Paradise Now! Essential Avant-Garde French Cinema 1890-2008 at the Tate Modern (London). Since 2007, Bouabdellah’s works focus on letters and words of love, and particularly on the status of women. Made with different materials – paper, acrylic, aluminum, neon, wood – her works act as slogans and forge links between North and South, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, the visible and unsaid. She has exhibited at the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), the Brooklyn Museum (New York), Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation (Vienna), the Museum Kunst Palast (Düsseldorf ), the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (New York), the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha) and the Moderna Museet (Stockholm). She has participated in several biennials and festivals including the Venice Biennale (2007), Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine in Bamako (2003), Thessaloniki Biennial (2011).

Artiste et réalisatrice, Johanna Vaude crée des films éclectiques. Son parcours révèle différentes périodes, partant d’un savoir-faire en arts et cinéma expérimental (peinture sur pellicule, footage, stock-shot, flicker, animation image par image) qu’elle étend jusqu’aux nouvelles technologies (mashup, recut, motion design, modélisation 3D…). La combinaison et la relation des images classiques et expérimentales engendrent des films inclassables qui oscillent entre avant-garde, clip, pop art, poésie introspective, expériences sensorielles, psychédélisme, rêve et fiction.

Son cinéma hybride, basé sur une relation entre les images et le son, aborde des thèmes très étendus en privilégiant le point de vue intérieur de ses sujets et en créant des univers intenses aux couleurs et aux montages insoupçonnés.Ses premiers films acquièrent une reconnaissance critique (Libération, magazine Bref, Encyclopédie du court-métrage, Cahiers du cinema Espana… ) et dépassent les frontières établies. Ils sont projetés dans des institutions (Frankfurt Film Museum, Tate Modern, Jeu de paume, Beaubourg) sélectionnés dans des festivals de court-métrage et des focus leur sont consacrés alors qu’ils ont été confectionnés hors des systèmes traditionnels (MK2 Beaubourg, Cinémathèque Française, Festival Côté Court de Pantin, Pesaro Film Festival, News form festival, LUX National de Valence,…).

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Mike Ladd is influenced by Funkadelic, Charles Stepney, Bad Brains, Burt Bacharach, Kraftwerk, Bollywood, Jungle Brothers and Divine Styler.

Mike Ladd has released several solo albums, including Easy Listening 4 Armageddon, Welcome To The Afterfuture, Negrophilia, Father Divine and Nostalgialator. He also released Gun Hill Road and Bedford Park as The Infesticons and Beauty Party as The Majesticons. He released two collaborative albums, In What Language? and Still Life With Commentator, with jazz pianist Vijay Iyer. He has collaborated with artists such as Company Flow, Rob Sonic, Saul Williams, U-God, Busdriver, Blue Sky Black Death, Daedelus, Jackson and his Computer Band, Coldcut, DJ Spooky among others. He has remixed songs for the likes of Yo La Tengo, Antipop Consortium and Enrico Macias. Mike Ladd has toured extensively for several years throughout America, Europe and Asia, establishing a cult following in the process.

Mike Ladd received his B.A. in Black expatriates in the Nineteenth century from Hampshire College and an M.A. in Poetry from Boston University. As a Fellow at the Institute for Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University, he produced and directed Blood Black and Blue, an audio documentary/performance about Black police officers in the United States. In 2005, he completed a fellowship at the Asia Society, where he created a musical/theatrical/visual installation In What Language? with Vijay Iyer. It was a project about people of color in relation to globalization in the context of airports. They also put up another installation Still Life with Commentator, which was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music for 5 nights of performances.

Mike Ladd has been published in several literary magazines including Long Shot Review and Bostonia. His work is also featured in the book Swing Low, Black Men Writing and several anthologies, including, Aloud: Voices From The Nuyorican Poets Café, In Defense Of Mumia, Bum Rush The Page, Por La Victoire and Everything But The Burden.

Né en 1966 à Ogidi, à l’Est du Nigéria. À la fin de la guerre du Biafra, en 1970, sa famille s’installe à Lagos. En 1985, il part pour l’Angleterre afin d’effectuer des études d’ingénieur mais il découvre le cinéma et est admis à la London International Film School, d’où il sort diplômé en 1990.

En 1997, il fonde Granite Filmworks, la branche britannique de Granit Films. La même année, il écrit, produit et réalise son court-métrage lauréat, On The Edge, suivi de son premier long-métrage, Rage. En 2001, Rage est le premier film totalement indépendant de l’Histoire du cinéma britannique réalisé par un cinéaste noir à être distribué sur l’étendue du territoire national, et sort avec un fort succès critique. La même année, Newton Aduaka est sélectionné comme résident de la Cinéfondation du Festival de Cannes et part s’installer à Paris. En 2004 et 2010, Global Dialogue, commande à Aduaka quatre courts-métrages de prévention contre le SIDA. Ces films sont traduits dans de nombreuses langues et utilisés comme outils pédagogiques à travers le monde.

Avec Ezra, en 2007, Newton I Aduaka remporte l’Étalon d’or de Yennenga au Fespaco, la plus grande récompense pour un cinéaste africain. La première d’Ezra se déroule sous les auspices de la section internationale du festival de Sundance. Le film est également nominé pour le Prix Humanitas et projeté en séance spéciale à la Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes. Ezra a été sélectionné dans plus de cent festivals à travers le monde et a remporté plus de 20 prix, parmi lesquels 6 grands prix et celui de la Fipresci. Ezra a été cité comme l’un des films pacifistes les plus importants jamais réalisés et a reçu le Prix de la paix et de la tolérance des Nations-Unies.
nicole-brenez

Nicole Brenez teaches film studies at Paris 3 University and curates the experimental and avant-garde programs at the Cinémathèque Française. Author of several books, with Philippe Grandrieux she produced the collection It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve, devoted to revolutionary filmmakers.

Silke Schmickl studied Art History, French Literature and Intercultural Communications in Munich and in Paris where she completed her master’s degree at the Sorbonne University in 2001. She has been a researcher at the German Center for Art History in Paris where she has published a book on the German photographer Thomas Struth. In 2002 she co-founded the Paris based DVD label Lowave, specialising in releasing and distributing experimental film and video art, which she directs since 2007. Within this structure she is in charge of the conception and realisation of artistic projects and curates film programs for international art institutions and festivals such as the Pompidou Centre, French Cinémathèque, British Film Institute, Museet for Samtidskunst Roskilde, Guangzhou Triennial and many more.

Student Films | Excerpts

Student Writings

Click to read what Hampshire students had to say about the course

This was an intensive production and theory course that helped me become acquainted with the medium and further explore issues of diaspora and working in spaces between and across different cultures. As a class, we were given the exciting opportunity to meet with various practicing artists whose work and perspectives complemented the themes of the course. This was an interactive way in which to explore the themes of the course in a format different from what is usually available at Hampshire.
 We also visited a design school in Nevers, where we discussed the work of French students making films, which was refreshing and thought-provoking. As to bring the themes of transnationalism to a local level, we also met and shared our previous work with people engaged in community-based work around such issues as immigration.
 Baba’s individual meetings and careful engagement with our films as they progressed helped me to revise and push myself in my work. The meetings helped me to make editing choices and think about aesthetic and thematic choices in different ways.
 I look forward to continued work in film with a newfound interest in Super 8. The course also has broadened my understanding of navigating cultural spaces as they shift and traverse geographical boundaries.

The different approaches to working artistically and thematically as exemplified through the work of visiting artists helped me in this process. The intensive Super 8 workshops initially served as an introduction to the form, but I was soon able to demonstrate my newly acquired understanding of the medium through the shooting and editing of film that culminated in my final project To Hold One’s Tongue, in which I explored the complexities of language, voice, and expression through a transnational lens. Mike Ladd’s critical analysis of the African American experience in Paris raised questions of appropriation but also cultural exchange. Though he is working outside of the corporate music world, his work is appreciated based on its sincerity and apparent integrity. His discussion on Negrophilia, which explores the ways in which Blackness in an African and US American context is and was approached by the French, helped me to further place my critical analysis of the Black identity in Paris into a historical context. Zoulikha Bouabdellah’s installation work inspired me to think about the ways in which cultural tensions can be expressed to an audience wider than that of the culture being discussed. Her feminist critique of the Muslim society from which she originates raised questions about the distinction between inter-cultural and intra-cultural dialogue. How can an artist of non-European origin navigate placement in the international art world that has a history of exclusion and tokenization regarding non-European artists? Jean-Marie Teno’s work raises questions about the links between African progress and the colonial legacy. I am interested in the way in which he approaches weighted questions about history and vision, how we said that some things are so unspeakable they must be approached with humor. The way in which he inserted himself into Afrique, Je Te Plumerai as narrator interested me, as well as his commitment to producing and directing his films as to ensure the preservation of the meaning and intentions he wishes to convey. His ongoing questioning of the postcolonial condition as well as wish to open dialogue about African advancement resonated with me. The visit to Aulnay-sous-bois was important for me because it helped me to connect the theoretical foundations of the course with community-based work. I enjoyed the experience of presenting a description of my work in French and showing my piece The People Could Fly in a context outside of academia, as I wish to make work that connects to people across cultures. An Accented Cinema helped me to place my work within a larger context of filmmakers working with themes of diaspora, cultural identity, and transnationality. The links between thematic and aesthetic content that inform the work of artists exploring these themes became clearer for me as a result of reading this text. It introduced me to many works and filmmakers I wish to further acquaint myself with in the future, such as Trin T. Minh-ha. I wish to further interrogate the outsider/insider navigation pertaining to filmmaking, and the blurring of these distinctions. Reframing Difference introduced me to the beur and banlieue marginalization within French society, offering a critical analysis of the process of working within the French film industry while making films that do not romanticize it. Also present in the book was the way in which films about non-white French people do not automatically carry a societal critique or political message. I believe I was a thoughtful and consistent participant in the course, engaging with the readings, visiting artists, and ideas. I put a lot of effort, thought and work into my film. I felt personally invested in the themes of the course. The course was intense and fast-moving, condensing many themes and presentation of work into a short period that provided much energy and provocation of thought. I am looking forward to processing and reflecting upon the many ideas and artwork that I came into contact with through the course. I feel enriched and inspired as an artist, and as if the various themes and approaches will continue to inform my understanding of transnational dialogue and artistic production. I look forward to continued work in film, with a newfound interest in and appreciation of Super 8. – Miatta Kawinzi, 2009

I came to Paris to be inspired. It’s the truth. Why else go? After finishing Div 3 in creative non-fiction writing and photography and graduating in the Spring, I felt lost. Being in a place of transition, I felt uninspired to write and to make. I hated that feeling. So, I came on the Super 8 trip in Paris to return to moving pictures, what I thought I was going to study at Hampshire before I found writing professor Will Ryan, and to a city that has inspired so many incredible minds before me in hopes that I would find myself again, let go of the post Div 3 haze and move on. In the end, looking back on my time spent, friends made, and film created, I think I accomplished all I wanted. I feel more prepared and inspired to enter the next stage/adventure of my life. Reading Julian Green’s Paris helped me focus my project on the windows of the city. “A mes yeux Paris restera le décor d’un roman que personne n’ecrira jamais.” Green describes spotting “a large window draped with mock lace curtains, tucked away in one of the old quarters.” He sees a vase of flowers and wonders who lives beyond that window? He describes, “Pour un romancier, toute existence, fut-elle la plus simple, garde son irritant mystere, et la somme de tous les secrets que contient une ville a quelque chose qui tantot le stimule et tantot l’accable. Quel enorme gaspillage de situations, de mots, de coups de theatre, de personages, de mises en scene! Comment ne pas s’emouvoir d’une telle concurrence?” Green opened my eyes to the possibilities of Paris and the possibly stories and lives I could write about. Green pushed me to see that I’m holding myself back from being inspired again, to write and to be happy. Wanting to remind myself of that early realization, I looked to windows as my film’s subject. But it wasn’t windows that interested me but what they represent, frames to look in and out of, holes into lives waiting to be seen, felt and heard. In my film, I worked with in camera editing of frames, reflections of windows and window shaped light. It was an exciting challenge to work with still images and try to make them move in a musical way. Developing my own film twice (due to a wonderful mistake the first time), splicing and watching my film get caught in the projector over and over, I have a new found respect to artists that work in Super 8. As I watched Jean Renoir’s film Les Regle du Jeu, I was distracted by the realization that I was watching a projection of film. Scenes like the hunting scene, the collage of images of men and women shooting shotguns and rabbits, birds, and deer being shot to their death, I was overwhelmed by the pacing, the framing and the music created. In a world of digital, there is a respect that comes with working with analog and a necessary patience that produces intentional beauty. Maria’s film series was a great example of that intentional beauty produced my analog. Maria’s work with the stills of Coney Island were breathtaking, even haunting. Imaging the time spent in planning and executing her project has inspired me to rethink my process of making and the ability to make outside of the school setting. Getting to know l’Etna and some of its artists has reassured me that my writing and photography, even filmmaking, won’t stop after school. I’ve realized that as long as I surround myself with people that are working on their own work, I’ll be inspired to make. Another realization Paris gave me: I need a community of fellow makers. Manet pushed the importance of community for me as well. His relationships with his mentor, Thomas Couture, and poet Charles Baudelaire helped mold the work he made. I could only hope to have such a community. Coming out of Paris has helped me decided to move to San Francisco in the fall. This trip and class were just what I needed. I feel like me again. Thank you, Baba. – Alex Vara

I think this class was one of the best classes I’ve ever taken in my Hampshire career. The short amount of time we had, pushed us to a very focused and challenging experience where we learned how to use our time to explore the city, talk to each other about our work and changing, shifting and improving our ideas and our work on the project. The fact that we had just one main project made me feel 100% focus on what I was doing. Moreover, the several visiting artists and Paris as a city in itself, kept inspiring me in my own work. Baba’s work for us has been amazing and I couldn’t be happier to have worked with her. Her feedbacks and individual conversations with her improved the quality of my project as I was progressing towards an end. The course material (both the readings and the movies) was very well selected and important for my further studies as I’m moving towards Division III. Moreover, I’m really satisfied with the final project and the many accomplishments I got as a result of this class. I also got very interested in working with a Super 8 camera and this course allowed me to experience and explore many ideas I’ve been thinking about for some time. – Camilla Flores d’Arcais

This class was really great. It actually exceeded my expectations, as it included and unified theory, practice and experience like no other. It was really well planned, organized, stimulating and challenging. Somehow, we managed to produce a short film, talk with practicing artists and, at the same time, experience and discover Paris-as film students. As a group, we unavoidably got to collaborate with each other and, thus, our work was somehow omnipresent all throughout the trip. We were not just visiting Paris, we were actually producing and thinking critically as we walked, saw and ate. Also, the diversity and versatility of each others’ background allowed the class to revolve around constant communication and feedback. Of all the production (drawing, writing, video) classes I have taken at Hampshire, this one was decisively the most significant one in determining my academic and creative development. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to invent and question…in Paris!!!! – Ivan Ulchur-Rota

Learning to shoot and edit on Super 8 altered my idea of what it means to create a film, and the time not spent on our own work was filled with endless inspiration from screenings, guest artists, Baba, and the city itself. The course was as exhausting as it was indescribably satisfying. We slept as hard as we worked. The specific type of camaraderie formed with my classmates through all this wonderful hustle mirrors no other relationships in my life, and the same can be said of Baba’s continued mentorship and support. The food was also unbelievable. I can’t say how much this course meant to me or how much it has influenced my thinking; I believe it to be among the most important experiences of my young life. – Finn Sexton

I came to the course without ever having used motion picture film, but this intensive course helped me develop my skills and fall in love with the Super 8 filmmaking process. Experiencing Paris’ Super 8 film community first-hand through the visiting artists and field trips showed me a variety of ways that the analog medium is being utilized today, which opened up a new world of possibilities for my future as a filmmaker. Before going to Paris I felt lost and unsure of myself, but by the second or third day of the course I was fueled by a newfound inspiration that is still driving my work months later. I was a little nervous to take this course, but I am deeply grateful I pushed myself to apply because this course gave me an tremendous amount of knowledge, experience, and new friendships that I will be able to take with me far beyond my college experience. – Gianna Paladino

I also learned that sometimes it’s better to let the project come naturally than to stick to strict guidelines from beginning to end. My film was aesthetically very different from the one I had originally imagined; however I was still able to express the feelings that I wanted to from the beginning. Using myself as a performer was also a valuable experience, as I not only had to direct myself as I was performing, and to visualize myself through the viewfinder, but I also had to direct the cinematographer and make sure he was getting the shot that I wanted. This turned out to be a valuable experience which led me to be more deeply engaged in the film. I was satisfied with the way that it turned out, I loved working with the material, and all in all it was an incredibly valuable experience for me.

As for the workshops, I got a lot out of developing my own film. I have worked in various formats before and I’ve processed my own stills before. However nothing could compare to the experience of being at the collective, being in that space, and learning how to develop my own film, and succeeding at it. I enjoyed and appreciated every minute of developing that we undertook at L’Etna. I was also very inspired by the permanent collection at the Pompidou, especially the Dada collections, the works by Hans Richter, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, and Otto Dix. The Musee d”Orsay was similarly inspiring. I saw incredible, priceless paintings that I had only previously seen in a google image and never thought I would be able to see in person.

Overall I feel I learned an unspeakable amount from this short course, about myself, my work, and the people I choose to surround myself with. It was an eye opening experience and it will have an everlasting impact on my future work as a filmmaker and an artist. – Henry Mosher, 2016

This field course in Paris seemed to come, for several reasons, at just the right time for me personally. For one, I found it liberating to involve myself in a single creative commitment and thus to focus my energies in one place, after a year of feeling quite scattered or spread too thin. I felt I could breathe again, could commit myself to a process not for the sake of its outcome but for what could be learned along the way. By the end of the trip end I felt a sense of fulfillment, as though I had expanded myself in a substantial way. I was reminded of what could be gained from a genuine commitment to an educational process, and what it really meant to be a student. These realizations were incredibly valuable for me personally, and by their virtue I feel changed, excited again by the prospect of learning- I’m eager to continue my education at Hampshire, and to continue to truly expand myself.

Of course there were obstacles along the way, most of them relating to problems with equipment. I was very upset after having lost the footage that I did, but appreciating the process above anything else allowed me to quickly get over it. I’m excited to see the remainder of my footage in the fall, and to edit it into my piece.

For my film, I chose to shoot in a neighborhood in Paris populated mostly by North Africans. There was such color there, particularly in the garments that I saw, which I found myself drawn to shoot. They moved so beautifully, and working through my first roll, I soon became preoccupied, along with color, by movement in general- I began shooting birds in flight, among other things.

Some of what I appreciated most during the trip was being exposed to working artists, like the filmmakers at L’Etna, Mike Ladd and others, through whose words and example I felt inspired and encouraged by the notion of continuing to create work outside the context of school. Hearing them, and seeing the ways in which they have navigated their lives as working artists, was invaluable. It was grounding to see that it is possible, but not always easy, to remain committed to ones artistic pursuits.

One of the filmmakers at L’Etna projected a film of hers to the group, which I really enjoyed. Some of what I appreciated most about it was its visual rhythm- how, for example, how it began with a series of quickly-moving vignettes, (which she achieved via the use of an animation stand), which was then was followed by an incredibly slow-moving 360 degree pan of Coney Island. We discussed at one point how a certain poetry can be achieved in the editing process by arranging shots of various lengths alongside one another, and I saw this reflected in her piece.

Attending various art exhibitions as we worked through our films provided useful supplements to our own creative processes. One that stood out for me was the Manet exhibition at the Musee d’Orsay- his portraits were what intrigued me the most. He captured faces, body language, personalities with a kind of subtlety that I try to achieve when depicting individuals through the camera. As a spectator, I felt as though I was communicating with these people, they seemed so truthfully rendered- staring at Olympia, for example, was a dialogue, for she was staring back at me.

I feel so fortunate to have participated in this summer course in Paris, for all that it provided. It was a truly educational and enlightening experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. – Maximo dell’Oliver

In many ways this course was a perfect synthesis of my studies at Hampshire, bridging my Division II studies to my future Division III project.

Meeting with one of the curators and directors of Lowave distribution company Silke Schmickl was inspiring, as her ethos to share Paris’ great experimental cinema scene with the rest of the world is similar to what grounds my current conceptualization of my future Division III exhibition. Her commitment to make cinema accessible by producing DVDs including interviews and texts in order to launch a new wave of independent cinema is remarkable. I was impressed by how Schmickl works across diverse theoretical terrain, taking up new curatorial that deals with vastly different issues from the previous. For example, after her “Human Frames” exhibition that focuses around human emotions, Schmicki turned to films and videos that deal with landscape and do not include any humans. I was also inspired by specific curatorial decisions made by Schmickl. As an art historian, Schmickl finds it necessary to create a dialogue between different pieces much like the exhibition of painting and sculpture. With the help of professional sound engineers, she transformed an unused metro station so that various films could be played alongside one another without having the sound of the pieces disrupt one another. In one instance she created a triptych of three different films. Schmickl also illuminated various concerns relating to funding in France. For instance she explained that because of the economic crisis there is more funding for narrative short films, however, she also stated that these appeal to directors of funding and festivals and are not necessarily the best forms to reach a wider audience. She explained that the judges for funding evaluate films solely by the written criteria so the visual experience of the films is not taken as a primary consideration. This prevents artists who do not have the best command of written French from gaining equal access to funding. Schmickl also explained that despite being committed to making Lowave accessible, DVDs have never maintained a steady market, and that experimental cinema already remains a “niche market” to begin with. Despite her wide distribution, Schmickl stated that selling DVDs around the world prevents her from having intimate contact with her buyers, who remain anonymous. Due to this fact, she has recently turned toward focusing on realized exhibitions. However, I am concerned with how Schmickl expects to reach a wider audience through use of exhibitions that are isolated to one specific geographical context. If I could go back to this moment, I would ask Schmickl how she feels about this problem, and where she sees the potential of the Internet and virtual exhibitions in making her exhibitions reach a wider audience.

Another transformative experience was meeting Laurence, a director of the distribution company Jeune Collectif. Along similar lines relating to funding, I was interested in how funding from the arts not only allowed Jeune Collectif to start in 1971, but also allowed it to re-start after its hiatus. I also was intrigued by Laurence’s explanation of how the collective’s philosophies changed over time. Issues around moralism and censorship relating to sexuality have changed over the years as films have gained support from various institutions such as museums and cinemas. Similarly, different political and ideological disputes have been settled over the years. For example, in the case when the collective would receive funding, there was conflict over toward what projects it would go for: individuals, studios, or specific groups. The evaluation of quality and the validity of certain forms over others also was a huge site of dispute, as early experimental filmmakers refused to consider any form of narrative as experimental cinema. Eventually these ideas were transgressed as filmmakers took up a more open, hybrid outlook toward different kinds of filmmaking, such as video, documentary, and various formats that became more accessible like cellphones. Laurence also indicated that although cinema is being taught more today and has a bigger audience, the collective still must fight for recognition and funding and that they do this through its annual festival.

One of my other favorite experiences in this course was meeting with film critic and curator Nicole Brenez. Brenez prepared a special lecture for our course, in which she explained 10 traditional propositions of what art is, and to each proposition explained how experimental cinema transgresses these ideas. At the core of experimental cinema is the transgression of the initial concept of art as a gathering of rules, as indicated from the Latin meaning of ars, arsis, meaning craft, a practice of excellence grounded on criteria of craftsmanship that is a body rules. Whereas traditional cinema took on a body of aesthetic and mimetic comfort that favored continuity, stability, clarity, narrative comfort, figurative compliance, and ideological servitude, experimental cinema invents its own rules, critiquing the presupposed belief systems that are understood in traditional cinema but never articulated. Experimental cinema does this through various strategies, such as blurring, discontinuity, presenting nonreadable forms that are free from logos itself. Experimental cinema dares the artist to be an artist not for an audience but rather for oneself, for one’s love of making art, for one’s relationship to history, and even film itself. There are so many more traditional propositions of art that experimental cinema transgresses which I find fascinating, however, explaining them each in depth would require more text than I can write in this self-evaluation. Regardless, Brenez’s lecture has allowed me to think critically about my own artistic practice and the direction in which I see my work heading. Furthermore, Brenez’s lecture has provided me with a conceptual framework by which to understand experimental cinema more critically.

My final film explores the philosophical concept of border crossing by situating a nomad in an alternate, surreal world. Part ecstatic hallucination, part spiritual transcendence, and part fairytale, the film traces the journey of a young woman as she wanders through a forest until stumbling upon a chateau. Working with Baba on this film dramatically improved my skills as a director, as I gained a far deeper understanding of performance and cinematography than I accessed in my previous studies. I have learned to consider the subtleties in the unfolding of gesture more closely, as well as to think critically about how each shot is constructed in its relationship to the narrative of my film. Although the brevity of the course only allowed for the creation first 3 minutes of what will eventually be a larger film, I am extremely satisfied with my final project for this course. I feel my film represents in my studies a shift away from what I would consider my “blue period” that was somewhat overly entrenched in theory and sadness, toward a new imaginative artistic practice that celebrates simultaneous creation and destruction. – Thomas Brown

This course has been very informative and exploratory for me. Connecting very intimately to the readings and our guest speakers especially Jean Marie Teno, I have found that this course has opened up a clear method by which to artistically express the concepts that I utilize immense time and energy breaking down in analysis of history and contemporary art. I was so glad to be given this first opportunity to create my own visual story based on my own current understanding, bringing in the wise words of many guest artists and the work of Hamid Naficy especially has been most helpful.

Naficy in particular has helped me understand the deeper implications of the ways the formations of identities based in their historical process have directly translated into habits or means of artistic expression or form. This is the first explicit delineation I have read, outside of my own inferences or short references to this notion of an accented art. I have never before been able to read something quite so comprehensive.

Our trip to Nevers in particular was very helpful. I loved seeing a smaller town outside of Paris, and seeing the interior of a public art school, and witnessing student works that were created with particular themes in mind, and witnessing the range of ideas that stem from that. It was good also to experience the cultural difference between the ways that we as students tend to critically analyze each others work just as professors would.

I also very much appreciated our visit with Zoulikah Bouabdellah. Her art was very political and challenged very interesting concepts, but I was uncertain of the depth of her investigation of certain histories of race and her own identification as an Algerian artist, a French artist now in Paris, and what nationality means to her in terms of her origin and new home.

Mike ladd as well was very interesting to speak with. Especially since he was a former Hampshire graduate and witnessing where he was come and where he is going with his work, is helpful on an additional context outside of this course.

I think that I am very satisfied with my work. I took a lot of time thinking through my ideas and working at night, finding quiet spaces to focus and develop my movie, and the results clearly paid off. And it is so nice to have such a visual and clear product of that, which I can come back home and share with my friends and family. I think I utilized my time very well, and hardly slept the first week and a half, and now that my movie was completed a day early as a result, I am well rested and excited to screen. – Katrina de Wees

The Super 8 Paris program was an extremely engaging course. Being new to filmmaking, the idea of a moving image was challenging for me to put into practice. I chose to focus on materiality and the body through “French Jenny”, a personage from the early 19th century United States who was supposedly one of the most famous prostitutes of the time. I chose to focus on the stereotypical association of the French with sexual abandonment that has lasted since the colonial era of the U.S. I wanted to match this idea by building a fictionalized narrative that parallels my own relationship with France as a place when I came of age and entered into new scores of consumption. I used images of lace, silk, thread, cotton, polyester, etc. to introduce a relationship between the person as thing and thing as person. I wanted to propose, through close-up shots of my own body interacting with material, the idea of an object or material that animates the body, and a body that animates material. These relationships are evoked by French Jenny’s own relationship with consumption as a prostitute from the 19th century. I constructed sets in order to frame the aesthetic nature of the film– ornamental, imposed, and at once, a pleasurable self-construction that is complex in its relationship to consumption, sex, gender, the body, and place. Through the physical editing process, I was able to understand the process of my own relationship to material and to the narrative I was constructing.

The workshop with Newton Aduaka was especially helpful in placing myself in Paris as a student interested in filmmaking, and how to better balance the learning process, the work, with the place. The Centre Pompidou’s permanent collection was very interesting and made me want to get back to the drawing table right away. Jeu de Paume was an amazing opportunity to see constructed archives and the subject of war and the people and objects that surround it.

Overall, I felt this course was a fantastic exercise in constructing a process with both material and the visual field. It was one of the most helpful courses in developing my own process as a student interested in art making. – Ella Richardson

The black and white film work allowed me (and past students) to strengthen the basics of lighting and shadow work, framing, camera angles, and blocking, which are essential for effective cinematography.

Even after 15 years teaching the same Paris course, Hillman’s passion is evident; in every minute detail of the events that transpired — from her close advising work with each student on all aspects of their films, to the selection of diverse readings, films, and exhibits we experienced, to the more spontaneous explorations of festivals, food, and music across the 20 arrondissements, or neighborhoods, of Paris — it was clear that the schedule itself was an art form.

We attended multiple screenings across the city. One of my personal favorites was Hillman’s recent film, Kitâb al-Isfâr: Book of the Journey. The film explores near-death experience and modes of perception and learning through the work of Arab Andalusian poet and philosopher Ibn ‘Arabi. I was instantly aware of what a great honor it was to see. The raw vulnerability, lifelong teachings, and cinematography are just some of the reasons that I wish I could make it my yearly ritual to revisit this film.


During the course, we were visited by Hampshire alum Allison A. Waite 11F, who completed the Super 8 Filmmaking in Paris program in 2013. Waite went on to attend graduate school at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, win the Princess Grace award (among other prizes), and is currently working on a narrative film called Seed about a Senegalese boy in search of treasure. Having had the opportunity to speak with someone who felt like a window into ten years in the future as a result of our shared Hampshire experience was amazing. It was so great, I went on to interview her.


She shared how the course had motivated her to explore cross-continental filmmaking. “I was inspired to go international,” Waite says. “I now mainly work in London and Kenya.” She credited the film course for equipping her with the necessary skills for her resume. She even went on to shoot some Super-8 sequences for the show, Residue, on Netflix. “I was hired on the spot because of my experience on this course.”


We discussed how she felt Hampshire’s educational model prepared her for graduate school and all of her projects that followed. “Hampshire helped me find my story… and helped me gain both the clarity and specificity that I needed.” Waite’s a proud endorser of the timeless relevance of the Paris course, calling it a “safe space for artists; an incubator for any creative.” I wholeheartedly agree with her.


Finally, I asked for her advice to young filmmakers. “Find your niche,” she says. “What do you want your stories to be about? What will people remember you for? That will open doors.”


Talking to Waite and Hillman during this experience made me realize how much I had underestimated opportunities on the African continent. I came to Hampshire College after growing up in South Africa, partially because I thought that I could only become a world-renowned filmmaker if I made it into Hollywood (and I started with Hampshire because the College has amazing, award-winning film alumni). When I returned back home to South Africa after the summer course, I attended every film festival and workshop that I could. I gained so much knowledge and made so many networking connections in such a short period of time, that in many ways, I feel like my career has already begun.

I don’t think I would have started looking for film-related opportunities in my hometown if I hadn’t attended this course. It helped me to realize that in order to make impactful cinema, I don’t have to work in Hollywood — that authentic storytelling from me can embrace my cross-continental nomadic tendencies. – Zukiswa Mhlongo