Industry Talk: Politics of Intimacy and Intimacy of Politics

The discussion spotlighted the eponymous research project Politics of Intimacy and Intimacy of Politics, a collaboration between Professor Lotte Mik-Meyer of the Norwegian Film School – Master for Conceptual Documentary, Professor Adina Pintilie of the HFBK University of Arts Hamburg – Film Department, and in close cooperation with Arne Bro, former Head of Documentary at the National Film School of Denmark. The event also featured a showcase and discussion of works by emerging filmmakers and artists, including Morgana de Mello (Brazil), Hugo Francker (Denmark), Bo Friedrich (Germany), Juno Jensen (Norway), Emilie Adelina Monies (Denmark), Merle Morze (Austria), Kristina Savutsina (Belarus), Marie Suul Brobakke (Norway), and Jostein Venås (Norway).

As the discussion kicked off, Bro addressed the daunting challenge for educators: how to teach without encouraging students to merely reproduce one’s position on film or conform to what film schools, the industry, or society would define as “a good film” but to cultivate “the capacity to create new forms, new understandings of reality, and new languages,” drawn from artists’ different worldviews, frameworks of knowledge, backgrounds, and training. He urged against adhering to the “ordinary understanding of how to make a film”, which is often shaped by the educational system, where film students are expected to produce work that meets specific criteria, and the industry, where the process typically starts with a predefined concept of the film, along with the expected outcome. “How to avoid that? I think the camera is an important tool,” Bro elaborated. “Sometimes we understand the camera as looking at reality, but it is also looking at the one holding it—[their] movements, interests, perceptions, and desires. So we are not just investigating reality; we are investigating the artist’s practice.”

While the term “safe spaces” may be commonly used in this context, Mik-Meyer emphasized that “artistic spaces are not always about being safe.” Instead, she prefers to use the term “courageous spaces”—spaces that allow artists to investigate their practices. Mik-Meyer noted that one of the key lessons they have learned over the years is that it is not about the specific assignments or tools but about how we hold space in which artists “can actually investigate their language and understand how this language is deeply rooted in their backgrounds and experiences.” In that respect, holding space entails creating “a non-judgmental environment,” which Mik-Meyer acknowledged is a challenging practice, requiring us to resist the urge to impose advice, even when we like what an artist is doing, and focus instead on the material itself to make use of “a visualized environment” for exploration.

Expanding on this discussion, Pintilie remarked that she comes from a tradition that believes that “language and methods are already there [within the artist].” She also shared an anecdote from her time at the Aristoteles Workshop for non-fiction filmmaking, where she developed one of her early projects. During the workshop, Bro insisted that showing filmmakers how others make films would be counterproductive, as it "stifles and censors your own creativity," a point Pintilie recalled. “You go into the educational system about cinema consistently refusing to show how other people do work,” she said, noting that when a mentor does present a specific filmography, it is not to teach students how to make films but to illustrate how other filmmakers navigated their own cinematic language.

Filmmaker Max Kestner, who also participated in the introductory exchange of views with Arno, Mik-Meyer, and Pintilie, stressed that innovation in filmmaking emerges from stepping away from predictability and letting go of the need to foresee the outcome, much like in scientific process, driven by curiosity. He pointed out, however, that there is “a clash between the actual work and the system facilitating that work” adding that “for better or for worse, we need the [production] infrastructure to make films.” However, to secure funding for a film, we often need to present a project that promises a clear direction and intention. He argued, “We call it ‘development funding’, but in truth, we’re not really developing anything but [honing] the language of how to sell the film. We don’t truly start working until we start working.”

As the event unfolded, the presentation of works by the participating artists offered a glimpse into how they develop their innovative artistic approaches that resist the imposition of a predetermined narrative. Among the highlights was Kristina Savutsina’s NUMB: The Body Knows What to Do, inspired by a real-life event in Ukraine during the 1980s, where a flat was contaminated by radiation for years, leading to the deaths and illnesses of its residents. The film contemplates the notion of ‘a nuclear family’, interwoven with the themes of invisible contamination, radioactivity, toxicity, and “slow violence.” Reflecting on her hybrid film, which blends parts of interviews, diary footage, staged scenes set in a 1980s ‘Soviet’ flat, and glimpses of the filmmaking process, Savutsina described it as comprising “four layers of realities.” These layers include "lived experiences, cinematic imaginations, and surreal scenes," all connected through one protagonist—herself. Through this process, the filmmaker also questioned the act of image-making, as she explained during the showcase, exploring how to depict the invisible, such as radiation, alongside the unseen “social structures that poison us.”

Another highlight was Hugo Francker’s graduation film, Adult Child, a deeply personal film about the director’s gender journey and their reconnection with their father. Coming from a more observational documentary tradition, Francker explained that this project marked a departure from filming others to turning the lens on themselves. The film incorporates costumes and the staging of the body, using “controlled mise-en-scènes” to investigate the layers of pain “not only to find the language for things which are difficult to articulate but also to take back the power over the body,” as Pintilie observed. In this vein, Francker underscored the role of the costumes in vulnerable scenes in the film, noting, “The costume helped because it created distance, a barrier, some irony, and humor, which allowed me to tap into [this journey].” Among the other highlights was Merle Morzé’s ET INCARNATUS EST: Studies on Pain, which studies the human body not only as a biological organism but also as a social construct, molded by social norms and political frameworks. The film probes personal limits through pain by portraying ritualistic, self-induced states. Reflecting on her methodology during the film's presentation, Morzé described the camera as “an extended limb to her body,” which allowed for it to cease to be an intrusion or an interference in particularly intimate moments.