Gwen Isaac

PhD Student in Film

Authoring the mother-subject: First-person documentary practice towards a feminist identity (in Aotearoa)

Supervisors: AProf Paul Wolffram, AProf Thierry Jutel & Dr Missy Molloy

ABSTRACT

In the wake of the #metoo movement, women documentary film-makers have turned the camera on themselves and their families in an effort to claim legitimacy for the mother-daughter narrative within documentary film-making canon and also to re-present their feminist selves.

This has intensified debates in the last decade around how voice and authorship are conveyed in autobiographical documentary films made by women. Early examples of this cinematic journey towards a feminist self-hood, using the mother-daughter relationship to drive the narrative include works by  Faber, Citron and Akerman who inhabit the arthouse sphere.  More recently, the most visible of these films is Sarah Polley’s ‘Stories We Tell’ in which both voice and authorship intersect to achieve a filmic statement about the mother-daughter relationship for this filmmaker.

My creative practice seeks to utilise and coalesce key filmmaker’s techniques into my own journey towards a feminist identity. In making  a film about my mother where she is the subject and the daughter the author, questions around who the process truly serves are raised and examined.

BIOGRAPHY

Gwen Isaac has worked for the USA and UK leading broadcasters and is an award-winning feature documentary director. Her documentary practice takes in character-led narratives, social justice stories, transnational feminism and personal biography films. She co-owns Daughter Limited, an independent film production company that focuses on character-based factual content for the international market and is a university lecturer into Creative Media Production at Massey’s College of Creative Arts.