The Orphanista Manifesto: Orphan Films and the Politics of Reproduction

Abstract

In this essay, I review the works of filmmakers Bill Morrison and Gregorio Rocha and contextualize their work within a growing apocalyptic cultural movement of film preservationists who identify as “orphanistas.” As orphanistas they struggle to reshape and reproduce cultural memory and heritage through reviving “orphans”—films abandoned by their makers. Moving images mimic cognitive memory, yet, depending on reproductive technologies, copies of moving images may organize mass publics and influence cultural imaginaries. Traditionally considered conservative, preservation in the midst of destruction is not only a creative but also an avant-garde act of breathing new life into storytelling and the reproduction of cultural memory. In this essay, I discuss how the surrealist works of Morrison and Rocha radically confront dominant cultural imaginings of race and nation, and I argue that film preservation has the potential of being socially transformative. An interview with Gregorio Rocha follows.