publications – Jill Daniels

Memory, Place and Autobiography

Experiments in Documentary Filmmaking

There has been a significant growth in autobiographical documentary films in recent years. This innovative book proposes that the filmmaker in her dual role as maker and subject may act as a cultural guide in an exploration of the social world. It argues that, in the cinematic mediation of memory, the mimetic approach in the construction of documentary films may not be feasible, and memory may instead be evoked elliptically through hybrid strategies such as critical realism and fictional enactment. Recognizing that identity is formed by history and what ‘goes on’ in the world, the book charts the historical trajectory of the British independent filmmaking movement from the mid-1970s to the present growth of new online distribution outlets and new media through digital technologies and social media.

“Like other great ground-breaking documentarists-Chris Marker, Wim Wenders, Joshua Oppenheimer – [Daniels] brings an artist’s luminous quality to her critical writing, leading us through observed, enacted and imagined scenarios to forge a radical understanding of new directions in the authored documentary. Her politics and her feminism inform this analysis, providing vital insights to those working in media, culture and the arts.
Sue Clayton

You can read/download an extract here

You can buy the book here

Scripting the Experimental Documentary Film

Developing the “Script” for Not Reconciled

A chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Script Development, Taylor, S. & Batty, C. (eds.) pp. 103-120. Palgrave Macmillan. 2021/2022.

Unlike the fiction script, there has been little research conducted to date on the provenance of the documentary script. I discuss this omission in my analysis of the stages in writing my creative documentary film, Not Reconciled, a film about memory and forgetting the victims of the Spanish Civil War.

Scripts for creative documentaries are not generally screenplays in the sense that the term is used by the film industry as a standard format for the production of a feature film. Jean-Luc Godard observed that the form of documentary films is often only found during their production and this may account for the lack of published pre-production documentary scripts. He observed that directors like Jean Rouch: “Don’t know exactly what they are going to do, and search for it. The film is the search. They know they are going to arrive somewhere–and they have the means to do it–but where exactly?” (Godard in Milne, 1972, 180).

The subjective voice and hybrid documentary filmmaking strategies

A case study

From Alphaville Issue 17

There’s also a link direct to the article itself should work if you click on above….

In this case study Jill Daniels references several of her recent experimental documentary films that mediate memory, place and subjectivities: Not Reconciled (2009); The Border Crossing (2011); My Private Life (2013); My Private Life II (2015) and Journey to the South (2017). She proposes the notion that film communicates in a sensory mode that may defy written theorisation or interpretation, with a rigor and precision that is quite separate to that of written language, but that nevertheless films, like written language, may add to knowledge. She argues that film theory is essential to enable the filmmaker to raise their work above the narrow framework of craft. She interrogates the notion that experimentation in documentary films may avoid perceived constraints of certainty, evidence and veracity. She notes that as a practice researcher within the academy she has freedom to experiment, which has brought considerable benefits to her practice.

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Trauma and silence

Strategies of mediation in the aftermath of civil war

Published in the journal: Rethinking History, Volume: 18

The article argues that there are limitations in relying solely on witness testimony and archival material to document the continuing effects of civil war. It references Daniels’ 41-minute film, Not Reconciled (2009), which concerns Belchite, a medieval town in the Aragon region of Northern Spain, and the 3-week battle that took place there in 1937. The article explores the ways in which the utilization of fictionalized characters, the voices of ghosts of Republican and Nationalist fighters, can enhance the realist strategy of observational footage and testimony, and demonstrate witnesses’ evasiveness and resistance to remembering. While the ruins of Belchite are silent, the voices of ghosts provide a sense of the simultaneity of past, present and future.

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The Cinematic Representation of Memory in the Autobiographical Documentary

In this article I explore the cinematic representation of memory, trauma and identity in experimental documentary cinema with reference to my autobiographical documentary film, The Border Crossing (2011):The film is set in the Basque country and explores my memories of a sexual attack 40 years ago while hitchhiking. It deploys documentary realism in interviews that explore memories of violence, with two Basque women, Aitziber a young Basque nationalist and Maria a middle-aged photographer. It also documents aspects of Maria’s daily life and contains extensive images of signifiers of the ongoing nationalist struggle in shots of political posters and demonstrations in support of Basque prisoners.ii The film combines this realist strategy with performativity in the enactment of my younger self and in voice-overs.

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Truth, Dare or Promise

My co-edited book Truth, Dare or Promise: Art and Documentary Revisited (2013) is published by Cambridge Scholars.

The book came out of the eponymous conference held at Goldsmiths University of London in 2012.

The book reflects on the ways that both artists and filmmakers address the innovations and limitations of producing and exhibiting their work. Ranging from community collaboration to individual interpretation, and from gallery installation to cinematic screening, this book explores the differences and overlaps between definitions and methodologies. With an international reach, including contributors who are both practitioners and theorists, this book maps out developments in art and documentary, covering themes that include explorations of personal experience and to representations of the past, while examining interactive galleries and the cinematic space.

I also have an article called ‘The Border Crossing:Experiments in the Cinematic Representation of Memory’. The article refers to the strategies I used in making The Border Crossing (2011), my autobiographical film set in the Basque country which explores memory and trauma.

It is published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, also as an e-book, September 2013.

more info here

Visible Evidence XVII Conference: Istanbul, August 2010

Jill Daniels and Max R. C. Schleser

Published in the Journal of Media Practice – January 2014.

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The Cinematic Representation of Memory in the Autobiographical Documentary

Conference Paper – January 2013

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Memory, Place and Subjectivity: Experiments in Independent Documentary Filmmaking

This is my doctoral thesis. The films Not Reconciled and The Border Crossing made as part of the thesis are also available for download.

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Visible Evidence XVII Conference: Bochum, December 2007

Jill Daniels and Max R. C. Schleser

Published in the Journal of Media Practice – July 2008 .

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Reviews and articles about Jill

Article on Fools Gold in The Dahlonga Nugget, 18th June, 2003

The Dahlonega Nugget
by Sharon Hall
June 18, 2003
(extract) Dahlonega film to be shown at DIFF
Dahlonega residents will have a chance to see their town through the eyes of film maker Jill Daniels when the Dahlonega International Film Festival returns to town.
The 55-minute documentary feature “Fool’s Gold”, takes a look at Dahlonega’ tourist-centred historic square and Lumpkin County’s “other” history- the history
Of people whose roots go back further than most of the merchants on the square, going back not only their lifetime, but the lifetime of generations.
Daniels first discovered Dahlonega when the British-born film maker showed her short film “Killing Time” at the 2001 DIFF. Daniels has a fascination with small towns, having spent the past five years making a film about three young British girls from two different small towns. She found Dahlonega “curious” she said. “It felt like being on a movie set. I think it’s difficult for small towns to know why they exist today.” Daniels stayed at the Smith House during the festival and there she found another side to Dahlonega that gave here the idea for ‘Fool’s Gold. She met Myra and Thomas Crooms, who took care of housekeeping duties while she was there.
“Ordinary people are a bit marooned unless they are able to have something to do with the tourists,” Daniels said “(Myra) told me people think of them as rednecks and never interested in what we have to say”.
Daniels’ intention was to explore that division in ‘Fool’s Gold’ but the film evolved…Myra told Daniels about her Cherokee heritage, Dahlonega’s history as the first gold rush in the country, and the eventual removal of the Cherokee people…she told of the tragedies of her life, and how she can find solace in the north Georgia mountains she loves.

Fool’s Gold premiered at the Downstream Film Fest in Gainesville, winning the Audience Choice Award. It was also one of 10 films to receive a jury award at the Athens, Ohio International Film & Video Festival this past spring.

“My film was very well received because Athens is located near the Appalachians…they all knew people like Myra.”
The Dahlonega Nugget
July 24th 2002
(extracts)

Dahlonega film wins award at festival
By Sharon Hall

Jill Daniels film “Fool’s Gold” a 60 minute documentary feature about Dahlonega, won the Audience Award at the Downstream Film Fest in Gainesville. Daniels became interested in Dahlonega when she came here to show her short film “Killing Time” at last year’s Dahlonega International Film Festival.

Some of the people who appeared in the film went to Gainesville for the screening – Mel Hawkins and Katy Woody were there.

“I was a little embarrassed,” Hawkins said. “I don’t think very many people like to see themselves on film. But I liked it. I thought it was fairly respectful of the area. It wasn’t meant to be a true depiction. It was sort-of surreal, very artful in some parts. She just shot and let it speak for itself.”

But Crooms, who features prominently in the film, did not want to attend.

“I sent Myra a copy of the film and told her to call me if she took exception to anything and I would consider taking it out, but she never called,” Daniels said. “I called her when I got into the state. She said she was happy with the film, except for the way she looked, but she didn’t want to come to the screening. She had to work.”

An article on Secret Heart from the Selkirk Weekend Adviser, 1994

(extract) Unlocking a ‘secret heart’

A Border Television documentary…tells the story of four young Cumbrian women whose lives have been transformed through music.
The four had learning difficulties and desperate problems which had kept them locked in their own worlds…in ‘Secret Heart’ the young women tell of the influence music has had on their lives and of the inspiration they have drawn from the leading American composer, Philip Glass.

A Review of Next Year in Lerin by Beck Woodrow, 2000.

Next Year in Lerin
On March 15th, we were privileged to enjoy the first showing of Jill Daniel’s film, “Next Year in Lerin”, which tells the story of twenty-eight thousand Greek and Slavic Macedonian children who were taken from Greece by the Democratic Army, without their mothers, to escape the Greek civil war. They were dispersed throughout Eastern Europe; only those of Greek origin were allowed to return.
The film centres on a reunion in Skopje to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1948 exodus, where the former child-refugees speak of their journey, of their feelings of identity and longings to at least see the villages they come from. There is singing and dancing, people have come from America, Australia and other places and meet long lost relatives.
Intercut with this is archive film of the childrens’ journey and family photographs, and film made in the Greek villages, showing empty houses. One man has been able to return by altering his passport, and he shows a photograph of his family house and a stone he has brought from its foundations. In a moving sequence, hands reach out to touch the rounded speckled granite stone; one man who has not been able to return says, “I think that he is full and I am empty”. At the end of the film, we see a bus waiting at the Greek border, and hear that some were allowed in to visit their old homes and some turned away.
Beck Woodrow
South-East European Studies
University of Lampeter

2000

A Review of Next Year in Lerin by Beck Woodrow, 2000.

Next Year in Lerin
On March 15th, we were privileged to enjoy the first showing of Jill Daniel’s film, “Next Year in Lerin”, which tells the story of twenty-eight thousand Greek and Slavic Macedonian children who were taken from Greece by the Democratic Army, without their mothers, to escape the Greek civil war. They were dispersed throughout Eastern Europe; only those of Greek origin were allowed to return.
The film centres on a reunion in Skopje to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1948 exodus, where the former child-refugees speak of their journey, of their feelings of identity and longings to at least see the villages they come from. There is singing and dancing, people have come from America, Australia and other places and meet long lost relatives.
Intercut with this is archive film of the childrens’ journey and family photographs, and film made in the Greek villages, showing empty houses. One man has been able to return by altering his passport, and he shows a photograph of his family house and a stone he has brought from its foundations. In a moving sequence, hands reach out to touch the rounded speckled granite stone; one man who has not been able to return says, “I think that he is full and I am empty”. At the end of the film, we see a bus waiting at the Greek border, and hear that some were allowed in to visit their old homes and some turned away.
Beck Woodrow
South-East European Studies
University of Lampeter

2000

Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival Catalogue 2001

Looking beyond predudice to a New Vision: Article on Next Year in Lerin from the Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival Catalogue 2001
Looking Beyond Prejudice to a New Vision
Wen, Tien-Hsiang

(extract) Next Year in Lerin… deals with the shadow of war…presenting the audience with a tragic and largely forgotten bit of war history. During the Greek Civil War that followed World War II, a group of ethnic-Macedonian and Greek children were taken away from their parents and sent to live in a Romanian orphanage. When the war ended, the Greek government allowed only the ethnic-Greek children to return. Unable to go back to their villages, the ethnic-Macedonian children were forced to take up residence in other countries. Meanwhile, their villages in Greece were gradually abandoned…Next Year In Lerin documents the 50th reunion of the children expelled from Greece. In interviews with the director, these now gray-haired “children” describe the difficulties and homesickness they experienced in exile. Even now, with the Greek Civil War a distant memory, these ethnic-Macedonian Greeks only dream of returning home. As a tour bus, bearing a number of the expatriates back to Greece reaches the Greek border in the final scene (some of the ex-pats had finally secured visas), I was suddenly reminded of Theo Angelopoulus’ films Voyage to Cythera and Ulysses’ Gaze.

Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival Catalogue
2001

A profile of Jill Daniels from the Huesca Film Festival paper, Spain, 1991

Looking Beyond Prejudice to a New Vision

Wen, Tien-Hsiang

(extract) Next Year in Lerin… deals with the shadow of war…presenting the audience with a tragic and largely forgotten bit of war history. During the Greek Civil War that followed World War II, a group of ethnic-Macedonian and Greek children were taken away from their parents and sent to live in a Romanian orphanage. When the war ended, the Greek government allowed only the ethnic-Greek children to return. Unable to go back to their villages, the ethnic-Macedonian children were forced to take up residence in other countries. Meanwhile, their villages in Greece were gradually abandoned…Next Year In Lerin documents the 50th reunion of the children expelled from Greece. In interviews with the director, these now gray-haired “children” describe the difficulties and homesickness they experienced in exile. Even now, with the Greek Civil War a distant memory, these ethnic-Macedonian Greeks only dream of returning home. As a tour bus, bearing a number of the expatriates back to Greece reaches the Greek border in the final scene (some of the ex-pats had finally secured visas), I was suddenly reminded of Theo Angelopoulus’ films Voyage to Cythera and Ulysses’ Gaze.