Speaking About or Speaking Nearby? Documentary Practice and Female Authorship in the Films Of Kim Longinotto

Abstract

Kim Longinotto’s films are known for ‘their control of emotion, apparently combining a rallying cry against social oppression while still retaining an effective confessional intimacy’, according to Murray. The author argues that Longinotto’s mode of address through an empathic listening, which emphasises participation with its women subjects rather than a narrative about them, allows for the emotional and moral complexity of women to be fully realised on screen. She concludes that this might be evidence to claim a discernibly ‘female’ style of documentary authorship if asserted with scrutiny and rigour.