Manifesto as method for a queer screen production practice

ABSTRACT

The authors reflect on creating a collaborative creative work that was developed both with, and as, a manifesto. Using queer theory as a framework, the authors track the process of developing and deploying a 14-step manifesto and outline their aims for queering screen production through creative practice. The project applies Baker’s (2011) call for a queer-ing of practice-led research, enacting a performative bricolage with a focus on queer screen production that is concerned with more than representation. The resulting 14-minute assemblage film outlines its thesis within an experimental, non-linear structure, comprising clips from the individual authors’ previously produced screen works, interplayed with new content, personal archive and textual elements. It combines the authors’ separate practices in filmmaking, screenwriting, mobile media and documentary in ways that deviate from mainstream categorisations, production hierarchies and workflows. Firstly, the manifesto is situated among others that outline strategies of disruption and resistance. Then, framed by the manifesto steps, the authors reflect on the film’s disruption of dominant narrative models in the context of queer theory’s critiques of heteronormative temporality. They then draw some conclusions around the possibilities of ‘manifesto as method’, and the implications for narrative disruption, queer screen production, and creative practice more broadly.

KEYWORDS:

• Screen production
• filmmaking
• mobile media
• documentary
• screenwriting
• creative practice
• queer theory
• queer methods
• narrative
• kinship-making
• manifesto

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 This ongoing project so far includes the films The Trouble (Kelly 2020) and Honcho Disko: The Documentary: The Lecture: The Musical (online performance for Melbourne’s Midsumma Festival 2022).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stayci Taylor

Stayci Taylor is Senior Lecturer at RMIT. She brings to her research an ongoing practice in screenwriting, script editing and performance. She is the co-editor of two books on script development, and one on creative writing methods. Publications include works in TEXT, New Writing and the Journal of Screenwriting.

Angie Black

Angie Black is Senior Lecturer at VCA, University of Melbourne. They are an award-winning director who specialises in filmmaking as practice-led research. Their debut feature film, The Five Provocations (2018), along with an extensive body of short films, explore innovative approaches to filmmaking and actively promote on screen diversity.

Patrick Kelly

Patrick Kelly is Senior Lecturer at RMIT. He is a filmmaker, media producer and artist, currently working on a documentary film project about Honcho Disko, an inclusive queer performance night, and exploring notions of identity, belonging and community in and around queer documentary film practice.

Kim Munro

Kim Munro is Lecturer at University of South Australia and a documentary researcher and practitioner at the intersection of immersive and interactive technology and social and environmental issues. Kim was the conference programmer for the Australian International Documentary Conferences (AIDC) for the 2020 and 2021 events.