An artist-led inquiry into filmmaking as a relational process shaped by roles, power, and conditions rather than narrative.

What can the process of filmmaking generate beyond a story told through images and sound—relational dynamics, out-of-the-ordinariness, a hierarchy of roles, shifting states of observation, performativity, resistance? Can filmmaking alter our understanding of place and sense of belonging? What if, in fact, the told story and the images are secondary to the methods used, and that which comes into play among people in the process of capturing footage? This volume shifts the focus from the narrative content of films to filmmaking as a set of conditions, both real and constructed. With these questions, artist, author, and filmmaker Rosa Aiello opens the conceptual space of this new volume in the KONTEXT series. She invites filmmakers working in hybrid forms of documentary, fiction, and experimentation to respond to these prompts.

Extraneous material, including a series of stills from B-roll of Aiello’s newest film projects, complement the discussion while writer Yaniya Lee reflects on the importance of methods and tools over images.