Herbert Duschenes’ Amateur Exilic Films: Cinematic and Social Territories in the Family Film <em>Ronny – 1949-1950</em>

Paola Prestes Penney

doi:10.6092/issn.2280-9481/10513

Herbert Duschenes’ Amateur Exilic Films: Cinematic and Social Territories in the Family Film Ronny – 1949-1950

Autori

Paola Prestes Penney Independent researcher
Paola Prestes Penney is a Brazilian documentarian and screenwriter. She has a Ph.D. degree from the Media and Audiovi- sual Processes Department of the University of São Paulo. Her research focuses on documentary and film archives, namely amateur film and video. Over the past few years, she has been a guest speaker at the Museum of Image and Sound of São Paulo and other venues, as well as visiting professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP) post-graduate documentary film programs.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2280-9481/10513

Parole chiave:

Herbert Duschenes, Amateur Film, Family Film, Film Archive, Exile, nannies

Abstract

In this article, we ponder how exile impacts the act of filming and its results in amateur filmmaking. I do so by studying the family films made by Herbert Duschenes, a German, partly Jewish architect and art history lecturer who moved to Brazil in 1940. I specifically analyze a sequence of the short film Ronny – 1949-1950 (1950), part of his earlier work focusing on the family he started in São Paulo. Thus, I address the sensitive relationship between the native household help that appears on camera and their European employer behind it, by bringing to light the interaction between the African-Brazilian nannies and the family they assist, and the blurry boundaries regarding the place these servants occupy not only in the home and society, but in the frame.

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Pubblicato

2020-07-30

Come citare

Penney, P. P. (2020). Herbert Duschenes’ Amateur Exilic Films: Cinematic and Social Territories in the Family Film Ronny – 1949-1950. Cinergie – Il Cinema E Le Altre Arti, 9(17), 53–72. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2280-9481/10513